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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE NEW SYSTEM OF THOUGHT 

Which Dr. Snider has been engaged upon for some years, 
embraces the following works: 

I. THE PSYCHOLOGY 

1. Intellect — Psychology and Psychosis . . $1.50 

2. The Will and its World $1.50 

3. Feeling, with Prolegomena $1.50 

H. HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 

1. Ancient European Philosophy $1.50 

2. Modern European Philosophy $1.50 

III. INSTITUTIONS 

1. Social Institutions $1.50 

2. The State $1.50 

IV. /ESTHETIC 

1. Architecture $1.50 

2. Music (in preparation) ........ $1.50 

3. World's Fair Studies $1.50 

V. HISTORY 

1. The American Ten Years' War $1.50 

2. The Father of History (Herodotus) . . . $1.50 

3. European History . . , $1.50 

The plan has also in view a psychological treatment of 

Biography and of Nature. 



THE FATHER 



OF 



HISTORY 



AN ACCOUNT OF 

H E R O D O T US 



BY 
DENTON J. SNIDER 



ST. LOUIS, MO. 

SIGMA PUBLISHING CO. 

210 PINE ST. 

(For sale by A. C. M'Clurg & Co., Booksellers, Chicago, Ills.) 



^/.'* 



(o 



i L»a.-<ArtY of CONGRESS 
I I wo vJooles Recelvecf 

OCT 12 190r 

Ccoynsrht Entjy 
/h^ 3/ /^«7 
CLASS A xxc, m. 

COPY t>. 



Copyright by D. J. Snider, 1907 



Nixon-Jones Print. ng Co., 215 Pine Street, St Louis 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction V-LXXXVII 

Book First 1-107 

Preliminary 1-13 

The Lydiad 13-62 

The Persiad -. . 63- 84 

Observations 85-107 

Book Second 108-198 

Physical Egypt 117-125 

Spiritual Egypt 126-136 

Historical Egypt 137-167 

Observations 168-197 

(iii) 



IV COyTEN'TS!. 

Book Third 198-245 

Cambyses and Polycrates . . . 202-217 

Persia and Samos 218-239 

Observations 240-245 

Book Fourth 246-310 

ScYTHiA ......... 253-280 

Libya 281-301 

Book Fifth 311-333 

Ionic Eevolt 320-333 

Book Sixth 334-370 

Persian vs. Greek 337-354 

Marathon 355-361 

Book Seventh 371-413 

Invasion of Xerxes 373-389 

Mustering of the Greeks . . . 389-399 
Thermopylae 400-410 

Book Eighth 414-436 

Movements on Both Sides . . . 419-424 
Salamis 424-428 

Book Ninth 437-451 

Plat^a 438-446 

Mycale 446-449 



INTB OD UO TWIT, 

The most important fiict of History is its 
birth. If this be accepted, the conclusion lies 
not f;ir off that the most important historical 
book is that of the Father of History, ancient 
Herodotus. 

Where, when, and under what circumstances 
did such a birth take place? History has not 
always been, man has had to evolve into the 
same; at a certain epoch the race became his- 
torical (or a part of it, the advanced or repre- 
sentative part). Uncounted ages we have to 
conceive of man as pre-historical, for he cannot 
count his own years till he has come into a con- 
sciousness of History. Then indeed he begins to 
reckon time backward, not only the passing but 



vi IXTB OD TIC TION. 

specially the past. In ti sense History is always 
being born, or, as we say often, being made; the 
act of birth is continually repeated, still the his- 
toric consciousness arose at a definite, ascertain- 
able period, and was an event of History, as we 
think, its most important event — not so much an 
occurrence in History as the occurrence of 
History. 

(J^ow the time and the place in which to wit- 
ness and to study this birth of History are found 
pre-eminently in the book of Herodotus. To be 
sure a travail of the same sort can be traced else- 
where and elsewhen ; but History picturing its 
own genesis appears first supremely in the Father 
of History, one of whose deepest strands is just 
this: to set forth his own historic paternity. Not 
directly indeed does he make any such claim ; we 
alone, looking back through the ages, can see 
him in his genetic character, can see him usher- 
ing-in the sunrise of History, though before him 
it had its twilight, yea its dark pre-natal epoch. 
We call him the Father of History, not because 
he happens to be the first chronicler of events in 
Time — that indeed he is not; but because he is 
primarily creative, he creates or rather re-creates 
in adequate utterance the risen historic conscious- 
ness of the race, particularly of the European 
(Aryan) race. The sun indeed had to rise before 
the sunrise could be produced and transmitted ; 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. Vll 

the historic consciousness had to show its 
activity ere its deeds could be portrayed. 

What is the primal act of this historic con- 
sciousness? A city, a people, perchance a race 
becomes aware of the universal worth of what it 
has done, aware of its world-historical achieve- 
ment, for which it seeks naturally a commensu- 
rate expression. Such a consciousness we may 
well conceive the people of Athens to have had 
after the deed of Marathon. Not a mere local or 
temporary exploit they felt it to be, but some- 
thing of universal import for all time, truly a 
nodal action in the World's History. Where is 
the man who can set it forth in a form worthy 
of it and lasting? Here he comes at the call, the 
one man seemingly capable of this new deed, also 
heroic in its way and preservative of the heroic 
deed. He does not sing like Homer, from whom 
he is nevertheless spiritually descended, as we 
shall see ; he talks prose, yet gives to the same an 
artistic order which has a decided poetic effect. 
Not so much the musical word or the rhythmical 
sentence, but the ordered movement of the parts 
win the mind as they bring forth the one great 
totality of History. Herodotus writes not merely 
a history, but the World's History of his 
time, and he is the first to grasp and execute 
such a theme, which has never ceased to be re- 
produced after him. The Folk-Soul of Hellas, 
especially of Athens, has become world-historical, 



viii INTBODUCTIONi 

being filled with the Spirit of the Age, or with 
'the World-Spirit, the Genius presiding over His- 
tory and calling up nations to fulfil its behest. 
From this point of view we may deem Herodotus 
the scribe of the World-Spirit for a given period, 
recording the grand Hellenic deed in the move- 
ment of the State toward the end of History, 
describing one most important stage in the long 
line of historic evolution. 

The Greco-Persian War may well be taken as 
the period of the birth of History, or at least as 
the most distinct manifestation of the same, even 
if there was a long preparation with many pro- 
phetic flashes and premonitions. This War was 
expressly the theme of Herodotus, who stands as 
the bridge from a pre-historical into an histori- 
cal world, from a poetical conception of things to 
prose, not merely in style but in thought. The 
beauty as well as the significance of his work is, 
that it represents both sides, and must be grasped 
doubly; two world-views must be seen in it often 
separating, often intermingling in a kind of kaleid- 
oscopic dance of many-colored events. On the 
whole Herodotus moves from the mythical into 
the historical, but he often drops back from the 
historical into the mythical, by an easy whirl 
which is so natural to him that it seems wholly 
naive. The Greco-Persian War preluded the 
mighty conflict between two continents and two 
civilizations, between Europe and Asia; it was 



THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. ix 

the shock of the World being born into History, 
whereof came the Herculean infant, whom we 
call World's History, and who is definitely seen 
and outlined, though as an infant, in our Herodo- 
tus. Before him. History, that is, the World's 
History was potential, almost though not quite 
speechless, struggling to get to the upper air, 
with occasional flashes which leap back into dark- 
ness ; we may deem it one long pang of parturi- 
tion, the mighty labor of History being born into 
Time. 

I. 

Let us note the historic act of mind, which 
each of us performs when we study the past. 
Evidently all History is a going backward to 
some beginning, if possible to the very begin- 
ning, from which point we move through events 
to the given end, even to our own time, to our- 
selves. Thus our mental process is cyclical in 
grasping History ; we whirl about to some start- 
ing-point in the stream, and then swim down, 
rounding-out the whole act. And History like- 
wise, in its reality, takes on the same form, 
which is that of Consciousness itself. It moves 
in pycles, as an objective Mind in action, think- 
ing and throwing out its thoughts into events of 
Time, which are always circumnavigating their 
globe little or large. The interesting fact just 



X INIBODUCTION. 

here is that in this cyclical way Herodotus con- 
ceives and writes his History. We shall see in 
detail how he seeks to round-out his masses of 
occurrences into a line of self-returning rings 
small and great, till finally all of them form a 
cyclical entirety. Moreover this procedure is 
largely instinctive with him, or has such an 
appearance, though this indeed is his art. 

Herodotus starts with the small historical 
round of events in Asia Minor, involving the 
struggle between Croesus, the king of Lydia, and 
the Greek cities of the Anatolian coast. But 
this little circle of events is deftly unfolded into 
the larger Persian one, which finally takes up all 
West-Asia. Then this Persian circle sweeps out 
of the Orient and seeks to embrace Greece and 
possibly the Occident, calling forth the conflict 
which is the theme of this total History of 
Herodotus, who gives the rounds of events, in- 
cluding both sides, the Orient and Hellas, 
though the complete separation of these two 
sides is the grand outcome of the war. The 
point, however, which we wish to emphasize 
here is that along with this separation between 
the two continents. Orient and Occident, appears 
the definite rise of the historic consciousness ; man 
becomes aware of and calls for Historyj which 
records for eternity the eternal worth of tlie 
great human deed, like that of Marathon. 

The foregoing outer separation, accordingly, 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. xi 

runs parallel to the inner separation which all 
consciousness involves ; the Ego has to divide 
within itself in order to be conscious at all. But 
now the historic Ego is definitely born with the 
birth of History itself, that is, of the World's 
History. The two are really counterparts and 
beget each other ; there could be no historic Ego 
without a corresponding World's History, and 
there could be no World's History without an 
historic Ego to make it, and to record it, and to 
understand it when recorded. Mark, we are 
speaking here of Ego or Self as historic, not 
merely as psychical; as unfolding in History, 
and at the same time unfolding History in due 
correspondence. We repeat then that the sepa- 
ration of Orient and Greece, the ground-theme 
of Herodotus, is the birth of History as con- 
scious, self -knowing and self-recording, is the 
real sun-up of the historic Ego of man. 

In this complete sense the Oriental man has 
had no History, not in Egypt, Babylon, China. 
The Orient lacks just this development of the 
historic Ego, of which there are many glimmer- 
ings, crepuscular flashes, separate events. At 
most are found in the East some national 
records, but no World's History. And yet the 
Oriental stage of History cannot be left out, 
though it gets its historic light from the West. 
What a study Europe is now making of the long- 
past civilizations of the Nile and Euphrates, seek- 



xu mTE OD UC TION. 

ing to co-ordinate them with the World's His- 
tory, seeking to do for them what they never did 
or could do for themselves ! Persia in Herodo- 
tus gets to be world-historical, not through 
itself but through Hellas and its historian, namely 
our Herodotus. If Persia had won in the great 
war, it would have snuJffed out just this rising his- 
toric Ego, and its own deed could never have 
been recorded except possibly after the fashion 
of the Behistun inscription, which must be taken 
as a fair sample of Persian Historiography. 

The history proper of Herodotus embraces 
hardly more than the space of a single human 
life. It lies between a few years before the 
capture of Sardes (546 B. C), and the taking of 
Sestos after the flight of Xerxes (478B. C). In 
a little more than 68 years is embraced the his- 
toric sweep of his work. To be sure he weaves 
into it what are often named episodes (a bad 
word for the thing). He himself calls them 
additions {prosthehai,) which, however, are 
made organic with his total plan, barring a few 
exceptions. Now in this period of 68 years (let 
us say) takes place the grand conflict of History, 
which brings its birth. By means of his episodes 
he traces all the various streams coming down 
through the dark past, till they gather into two 
great colliding heads, Persia and Greece, whose 
struggle is his book. 

The Historian was not contemporaneous with 



THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. Xlll 

the period of the War, but lived in the next two 
generations. His life of 60 years and perhaps 
more, overlaps at the edge of the beforemen- 
tioned 68 years directly. Thus he could hear 
all about the war from living actors, and at the 
same time look back at it with reflection. He is 
Pan-Hellenic in spirit, and seeks to give to each 
people and city theirjust dues. On this side (as 
on others) he is like Homer who came from the 
same general region as Herodotus, whose history 
grew directly out of the hearts and mouths of 
the Greek people. 

At the same time he is not unfriendly to the 
Persians. He devotes a large part of his history 
to the formation of their Empire, which he deems 
a great act. They, coming originally from the 
small province of Persia, have by their unique 
ability conquered, united, and are governing from 
their capital city all West Asia as far as the 
Indus. Three vast masses of different kinds of 
humanity inhabit this enormous territory. First 
are the mountain people, chiefly Iranians, to 
which Aryan branch the Persians themselves be- 
long ; then are the wholly different nations and 
civilizations of the two great River- Valleys, the 
Euphrates and the Nile ; finally are the sea-far- 
ing cities of the Mediterranean, the Phenician 
and the Grecian of Asia Minor. All these diverse 
peoples the Persian consolidated and hurled 
against continental Greece. After his repulse 



XIV INTBODUCTION. 

from Europe, he ruled this same extensive 
Empire for nearly 150 years till it was shattered 
by Alexander at Issus and Gaugamela. 

Our historian gives an ehiborate account of 
Persia gradually forming her Empire, vrhich be- 
gins with her great national hero Cyrus. Still 
there are limits to his History. He never pene- 
trated into the Iranian nations beyond the River- 
Valley of the Euphrates; to him the Indus and 
its people belong rather to Fableland, to that 
peculiar Rim with which he surrounds the civil- 
ized world. The other omission is more strik- 
ing. He alludes to the Phenicians, but never 
interweaves them or their history into his narra- 
tive. His omission of the Carthaginians is 
equally surprising. He leaves out the Semitic 
contribution to History. Why? Only conjec- 
ture can give an uncertain answer. 

11. 

Something about the life of the writer should 
be set down in advance of the study of his book. 
The main interest of that life is the stamp which 
it bears of the World's History. If there is 
anything about which all accounts concerning 
Herodotus are agreed, it is that he was born and 
passed his earlier years in Asiatic Hellas, that he 
dwelt at Athens during middle life or a portion 
of it. and that afterwards he settled in a Greek 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. XV 

colony of Italy, where he is generally supposed 
to have lived during his later days and to have 
died there, after revising and completing his 
work. Here the striking point is that there was 
an Oriental, an Athenian (Continental or Euro- 
pean), and an Occidental Herodotus, and that 
his life moves through these three stages of the 
total World's History, as we see this now in our 
time and from our own country. To be sure, 
Herodotus was still Hellenic in this life-sweep of 
his, for the one Hellas had just these same three 
parts or elements. There was the Oriental Hel- 
las, comprising especially the cities of the Asiatic 
Coast, and Continental or European Hellas, and 
Occidental Hellas in Italy and Sicily„ Thus the 
three Hellases in one were a kind of proto- 
type, and indeed the primal historic germ of the 
World's History in its three stages (Orient, 
Europe, and Occident) as it lies before us quite 
fully blossomed out to-day. 

But the emphatic thought now is that this 
universal process of the World's History was 
stamped upon the very life of Herodotus in its 
individual process. Not without significance is 
this, nor is it to our mind a mere fortuitous cor- 
respondence. Upon the Father of the World's 
History is impressed the seal of his paternity. 
To be sure he is but the voice, the scribe, the 
recorder ; really the World's History fathers him, 
and imparts to the child the very feature of its 



xvi INTB OD UC TIOJSF. 

own deepest character. We can say, accord- 
ingly, that Herodotus lived a world-historical 
life, even in its external spatial setting, and fore- 
shadowed in his own personal history the sweep 
of Universal History. 

Along with this outer movement of Herodotus 
from the East, through Greece, to the West, 
runs a line of corresponding inner changes which 
Biography is specially to reveal. Thus it be- 
comes the counterpart of History in the soul of 
the individual, who always has his subjective 
tendencies, limitations, peculiarities. These too 
are present in our Historian and give color to his 
narrative, and even determine his method of con- 
ception and treatment. 

The period in which Herodotus lived is fairly 
definite and ascertainable, but it is difficult to 
date in detail. It floats freely in a given 
boundary of time, but the exact year from birth 
to death can seldom, if ever, be stated o The 
outlines of his career, yea of his inner develop- 
ment are distinctly visible even if they cannot be 
sharply timed. 

Few are the facts about Herodotus which have 
come down from antiquity. The real Mfo of the 
man as well as his spiritual visage we are to 
catch from his book. We become Intimate with 
him and learn to love him through his written 
self. He is one of those authors whose person- 
ality comes out strongly, though not obtrusively, 



THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY, xvii 

in his manner of expression. In part but not 
wholly the periods of his career are reflected in 
the divisions of his work. He had his domi- 
nantly Oriental time and even mood ; then his 
Greek nature would prevail. These are the two 
elements which are woven both lengthwise and 
crosswise, both successively and synchronously, 
throuojh his work. 

These epochs of his life we can discern, 
though not definitely date. He has a time of 
travel, of wandering, of gathering materials — a 
time full of varied experience. This was followed 
by a time of concentration on the one hand, yet 
of inner struggle and separation on the other; we 
may call it his Athenian time, in which he had 
in a manner to reconstruct his life, his world- 
view, and therewith his historic consciousness. 
Finally he quits Athens, colonizes himself in the 
new West at Thurium in Italy, where he elabo- 
rates and finishes his History, going back to his 
earlier career with its acquisitons through travel 
and experience, and completely organizing his 
work, which was previously more or less frag- 
mentary. Hence we find in it many single por- 
tions which the young Herodotus wrote with an 
immediate freshnessof vision, but with the limita- 
tions of youth. But the great organic totality, 
the profoundly ordered cosmos of the book is the 
product of age with its long stretches of thought, 

2 



xviii JNTBOD UC TION. 

which also require leisure and repose of feeling, 
as well as maturity of mind. 

III. 

First, then we have to look at the period of 
life which we have called the Oriental Herodotus, 
or the Asiatic epoch of the Historian. This 
embraces his preparatory education for his work, 
his apprenticeship. We are to glimpse him in 
his home, in his boyhood, as traveler and vora- 
cious sight-seer. He is supremely the investi- 
gator, the keen questioner of the Oracle of His- 
tory, whose manifold answers throughout the 
then civilized world we may see him putting down 
in his noto-book, before the pyramids of Egypt, 
on the walls of Babylon, with the caravan of the 
desert, amid the wild tribes of the borderland. 
Then this mass of recalcitrant material must be 
whipped into order — but that is the task of an- 
other period of life. 

We are, accordingly, to put under one head 
that portion of our Historian's life during which 
he was chiefly occupied with matters Oriental. 
We must not forget that there were Greeks in 
Asia and that Herodotus was born an Oriental 
Greek at the Dorian town of Halicarnassus. The 
date of his birth is generally placed in 484 B. C, 
but is sometimes assigned to 489 B. C. The 
authority for the first date is Pamphih\, a female 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. xix 

historian of Nero's time, who is cited by Aulus 
Gellius ; the second date is derived from Eusebius 
who lived in the reign of Constantine. We shall 
follow the first with the bulk of authority, 
thouofh the second has its advantaojes, and need 
not be wholly neglected. 

What was the environment surrounding the 
child Herodotus, by which his historic bent may 
have been fostered? The Greco-Persian War, 
after lasting some two years was practically ended 
by the battles of Platea andMycalein 479 B. C, 
when our Historian was five years old (or ten it 
might be). The air which the boy breathed was 
laden with the great conflict. The battle of 
Mycale took place not far from his birth-place. 
The town of Halicarnassus was full of returned 
sailors who did not fail to talk of Salamis. What 
had it chiefly to converse about for years after- 
ward except the incidents of the great War, in 
which its queen Artemisia took a distinguished 
part on the side of Persia? The youthful Herod- 
otus must have heard the story dozens of times 
from participators; he grew up in an atmos- 
phere echoing everywhere with the occurrences 
of that mighty struggle. Certainly, if he had a 
native inclination to History, here was food 
enough. Doubtless he heard different versions 
of the same event, the memory of which led him 
in riper years to sift his evidence. We may sup- 
pose that the eager boy would beg for tales 



XX mXE OD UC TION. 

of the war ; thus he has started to learn hy 
inquiry {historein) and that new science of his, 
which he calls Historia or knowledge gained b}^ 
asking, has begun its career through Time, even 
if it will widen its meaning (see the word in the 
first line of his book). The two chief Greek 
Historians after Herodotus, Thucydides and 
Polybius, will to a large extent follow his con- 
ception of History, as knowledge gotten through 
inquiry, since they write mainly, though not 
wholly, of their own time. 

But young Herodotus did not need to confine 
himself to the recent war. There were men of 
middle age living in his town who had taken part 
in the great Ionic revolt (see Book V) which had 
started some twenty years before and had ended 
in the capture and destruction of Miletus (494 
B. C), a large city near Halicarnassus. The 
lonsf line of Greek cities flaminsj with rebellion is 
pictured by our Historian with a freshness and 
distinctness which seem to spring from an imme- 
diate personal participation in the events. It is 
our opinion that the boy heard them told in the 
market place, in the wine-shop, or at the hearth 
by those who had seen the actors themselves, 
notably Histiaeus and Aristagoras. One cannot 
help thinking that the account of the Ionic revolt 
was written by the author at an early period and 
afterwards incorporated in his complete work. 

And still further back in the past might the 



THE FATBEB OF HISTOBY. xxi 

livino- informants of our Historian have reached. 
Very old Halicarnassians could have fought in 
the wars of Croesus and Cyrus, both of whom 
subjected Greek cities of the Anatolian coast. 
Herodotus says he knows who "began doing 
wrong to the Greeks" — knows of course through 
inquiry. With this first wrong-doer, who is 
Croesus, History starts, the theme of which is the 
collision between the Greeks and the Orientals. 
Thus the living word in the ear of that boy was 
borne back to the opening page of History, and 
he heard its first Greek note, which has never 
ceased recording itself from that day to this. 

Such are the three layers of antecedent historic 
struggles of which the young Herodotus could 
learn by inquiry in his native town. The Persian 
War, the Ionic Eevolt, the Taking of Sardes, to 
which may be added the Scythian expedition of 
Darius, though this was more remote in place and 
interest — all lay within the memory of men still 
alive and ready to talk about them with Greek 
volubility. All of them were great crises, or 
stages in the grand opening conflict of Universal 
History, the conflict between East and West. As 
a boy Herodotus gets his theme from his environ- 
ment, which is in itself world-historical. 

This we may deem his primal deepest educa- 
tion, which he sucks-in as mother's-milk from the 
social and institutional order around him. But 
in his boyhood begins that other sort of educa- 



xxii INTBODUCTION, 

tion, which is to give him the transmitted in- 
strumentalities of culture, whereby he can put 
into form and hand down to posterity his own 
spiritual treasures. What branches did he study? 
The school had been already established ; in his 
book we read of a horrible fatality to a school- 
house in Chios, by which many youths perished. 
We conceive that the lad, like many an other, 
never had much taste for arithmetic; certainly 
the figures in his work are about the worst part 
of it, they usually will not tally, the sum total 
given by him is mostly, though not always, dif- 
ferent from the result of the added items. His 
rather unsympathetic account of Pj^thagoras may 
have been influenced by his dislike of the Py- 
thagorean stress upon number. Of geography 
Herodotus was certainly fond, yea always eager 
to learn more of it, as we see by his extensive 
travels ; but whether he acquired much of this 
branch in his Greek school, may be a question. 
The first map had been already made by Anax- 
imander of Miletus. To the study of language 
he devoted himself, and he had a good oppor- 
tunity, as we may catch out of traditions handed 
down from antiquity. He lived in the after-bloom 
of the Lyric Poets of Greece, many of whom he 
cites or alludes to in his book. 

But the work which above all others he studied 
and appropriated was that of Homer. The Iliad 
and Odyssey constituted a veritable breviary for 



THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. xxiil 

our Historian. lu his language there are many 
Homeric words and turns ; then his conception of 
the My thus is largely epical. Very deeply he 
has penetrated the organization of Homer, more 
deeply than anj modern critic probably ; also he 
has not failed to employ it in his own book, 
whose Homeric structure can often be traced. 
The chief bond however is that the ground-theme 
of both Homer and Herodotus is the same ; Poet 
and Historian, each in his own manner, portrays 
the conflict overarching the Greek world, that 
between Asia and Europe (see following pp. 9, 
11, 14-18, etc.). 

There is another item of import which has 
come down about the Herodotean family : an 
uncle (or cousin) of the Historian, by the name of 
Panyasis, was a distinguished epic poet, a resus- 
citator or more probably an imitator of Homer. 
He was the author of an epos on Hercules in 
fourteen books. Think of such a rhapsode in 
the house reciting his hexameters after the 
Homeric fashion, and winning the unbounded 
admiration of all his relatives, among whom was 
little Herodotus who could hardly help catching 
the epic lilt and speech. Homer too has the 
national Pan-Hellenic note, he is not narrowly 
local or tribal : a trait which Herodotus also pos- 
sesses in an eminent degree, and which he will 
show in his coming function of recordinof the 
great deed of the Greek race, greater than the 



xxiv INTU OD UC TION. 

Trojan. So we may conceive the boy to have 
o^otten a home-training for his future work from 
uncle Panyasis. 

Later our Herodotus will go to Athens and 
there come upon a new kind of poetry — the dra- 
matic, which his friend Sophocles cultivates with 
great success. This will also deeply influence his 
History — but let that be told later on ; here we 
are to see that his culture embraces the three 
kinds of poetry — epic, lyric and dramatic — all of 
which were evolved in the spiritual development 
of ancient Hellas, and which still remain our 
fundamental divisions of the poetic world. 

Still Herodotus in spite of all this poetic train- 
ing and sympathy, will not employ verse as the 
final form of his expression. Historian he must 
be, and thus distinct from Homer, from Panyasis, 
and all the shining host of poets ; he will take 
not the measured speech of the poet, but the 
prosaist's unfettered flow of words, now de- 
manded and coming into vogue. Pherecydes of 
Scyros (550 B. C.) is said to have been the first 
Greek writer of prose, which arose not before 
but after verse. A curious fact this is, not 
merely in philology but in psychology : human 
language turns back {versus) ere it goes forward 
(prorsuSf prosa) continuously. Herodotus is the 
first great prose-writer of Greece whose book 
has been preserved as a whole, adjusting his nar- 
rative to the forward course of Time itself in 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. xxv 

which History has its elemental movement. 
Poetry measures speech, therewith turning the 
spirit back upon itself; History breaks loose 
from this voiced whirling backward of line and 
strophe, and follows the given stream of events 
outwardly, but also (in Herodotus) shows them 
inwardly moving in cycles. From this point of 
view we can say that our Historian has preserved 
the inner poetic soul of man's heroic deeds, even 
if he rejects their formal outer vesture of verse. 
The education at home being fairly completed, 
Herodotus, now a young man, takes the next im- 
I portant step in his career, which is to become a 
traveler. Already (we may suppose) he has 
seen'jthe neighboring cities along the coast of Asia 
Minor, and has visited the adjacent islands. Pos- 
sibly he has taken a flying trip to Athens, then 
the central city of the Greek world. With 
Samos he must have had some special connec- 
tion ; possibly he has been entertained by his 
namesake in Chios, Herodotus son of Basileides, 
a supposed relative though an Ionian, whom our 
Historian singles out for special mention from 
seven otherwise nameless persons on an embassy 
(Book VHI, 132). The aspiring young fellow 
thus gets the desire to move outward from the 
Greek center to periphery, and to see with his 
own eyes the extremes of the known or civilized 
world, as it appeared about the middle of the 
fifth century B. C. 



XXVI INTB ODVG TION. 

In regard to the travels of Herodotus, we are 
quite in the dark about the order of the countries 
visited, the length of his stay in each, his means 
of transport, his companions, his hardships, his 
expenses. The personal side, so prominent in 
the modern book of travels, he has quite elimin- 
ated in transforming his notes into History. 
The knowledge of the object he gives often along 
with its historic genesis. What is present he 
tells, but it cannot be understood apart from its 
past, which is also to be recounted. So he learns 
by inquiry how these marvelous things before 
him got to be, and then sets down the whole, 
kneading it together into his form of expression. 
Thus the traveler will metamorphose himself into 
the historian. But first he has to be the traveler, 
the simple chronicler, and the geographer, gath- 
ering his materials very slightly out of books, 
though these already existed and must have fur- 
nished some points, especially his chief purpose, 
which was a book. 

In a general way the journeys of Herodotus 
can be conceived as extending from Hellas or 
perchance from Halicarnassus as a center, toward 
the four quarters of his environing world. To 
the East, South, North, and probably West he 
travels as far as he can, till he comes to the Rim 
which separates civilized antiquity from barbar- 
ous. This Rim is not easy to draw to the 
exact line, still it is a very real thing to Herodo- 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. xxvii 

tus, and he marks it on all sides in his book. 
Beyond it he does not travel, though we may see 
him peering across it with a shy curiosity and 
beholding all sorts of marvels. Indeed over the 
Rim lies the land of wonders, such as India, 
Ethiopia, Scythia, which can only be described 
by the miracles of the fairy-tale. But inside 
the Rim is the historic world, especially Persia 
and Hellas ; between these Powers is the grand 
conflict of History, to describe which is just the 
function of our Historian. 

One may conjecture that his first long trip may 
have been eastward, to Babylon, the colossal city 
of the Orient, and to Susa, the capital of Persia, 
where he might have had some business, as he 
was ostensibly a Persian subject. On the whole 
this was an easy journey to take, since he had 
only to ride along the excellent road made by 
Darius and supplied with caravanseries at con- 
venient stopping-places. The limit of this jour- 
ney to the East was the valley of the Euphrates, 
for Herodotus never penetrated the mountains of 
Persia proper, the original seat of the Persians, 
and he never saw their famous cities, Persepolis 
and Pasargadse. The Indus lay far beyond his 
horizon, and also the vast stretch of territory 
inhabited by the Aryans from Bactria to Per- 
sia — a territory which Alexander will traverse in 
his later conquests. The huge fluvial cities, 
Nineveh and Babvlon, with their lono^ antecedent 



xxviu IJSTTB OD UC TION. 

History won the permanent interest of the 
budding Historian, though his object was to 
trace the rise of the Persian empire from its 
first beginning till it had consolidated all the 
peoples of West-Asia into a mighty mass, which 
was. to be hurled against the little Greek City- 
State in vain. 

The journey to Egypt was a capital event in 
the life of Herodotus, though the date of it is 
uncertain. The plausible conjecture has been 
made that he was there durinoj the revolt of 
Inaros from the Persian king (460-55 B. C), 
when "the Athenians controlled the country" 
according to Thucyclides. But at any time he 
would have found many Greeks in Egypt, inas- 
much as for two centuries, since the ase of 
Psammetichus, they had been located in the 
valley of the Nile. Our traveler naturally went 
first to the Greek town Naucratis founded by 
Amasis, with its native speech, customs, wine- 
shops, especially with its licensed guild of inter- 
preters, half-breeds as Herodotus has told their 
story. What did heget from Egypt, from its pyr- 
amids, from its colossal works, from its long lapse 
of centuries? That second Book of his (on 
Egypt) has to our mind a peculiar style and 
coloring; the clear Greek outline is seen evanish- 
ing into an uncertain twilight of shapes. At any 
rate the Historian here reaches quite back tQ the 
beginning of History, to the first evidenced start 



THE FA THE B OF HIS TOBY. xxix 

of human civilization. Now Herodotus is 
destined to make a new historic beginning, very 
different from thtit old Egyptian one; he will 
portray the* start of European History in its con- 
flict with the Orient, though the latter seems to 
have its far-off primordial start in Egypt. Cer- 
tainly Herodotus was thrown back to the 
remotest reach of his science during his trip in 
the Valley of the Nile. Thus it had its bearing 
upon his life-task, which was to show the great 
historic transition from the East to the West 
(More about Herodotus in Egypt on following 
pp. 179-85). 

Along the Southern Rim of his travels, Herod- 
otus sees the Greek colonies Cyrene and Barke, 
with quite a little stretch of Northern Africa 
embracing what seems to be a caravan route in 
the Libyan desert. Beyond this Rim again he 
places unnatural things, wonders recounted in 
fabulous tales. As a counterpart of this South- 
ern border, the North has also its Rim with the 
corresponding marvels (in Book IV). It is 
likely that our traveler did not fail to pay a visit 
to the Greek world in the West, in Italy and 
Sicily, during his first period, and note there also 
the Rim of Barbary. But properly that Western 
world belongs to his later life, in which it will 
receive some notice, from his having gone to 
Italy as a colonist. Thus on four sides, with 
Greece as a center, he has delimited his environ- 



XXX lYTBOD UC TION. 

ing earth, which he conceives as embraced in a 
kind of border or Rim not easily passible, and 
perilous at least for the ordinary man. 

Such we may deem the itinerary of Herodotus 
in his attempt to make the round of the known 
territory of antiquity. In every direction he has 
pushed to the belt which surrounds the civilized 
nations, and separates them from the uncivilized 
and even unhuman. This we have called the 
Rim of Barbary, which civilization is to tran- 
scend step by step through all coming History 
till our own time, which likewise has its border- 
land of savagery. It is for us orie of the merits 
of the Father of History that he draws this peri- 
pheral line with such distinctness, and thus in 
his way marks out the problem of civilization, 
of course unconsciously. After his time we shall 
see Rome extendinoj this Rim, and Charlemagne 
pushes it out still farther, beyond the old limit 
in the North. 

Finally the traveler returns home from his dis- 
tant journeyings. This is the time when a 
political adventure is ascribed to him. The 
tyrant Lygdamis who has slain his uncle Panya- 
sis, forces him to flee from Halicarnassus ; but 
he returns with help and drives out the tyrant. 
This story is first told by Suidas, a late and poor 
authority; the result is that it has been genei ally 
discredited by scholars. It may be deemed, 
however, a tribute to the popularity of Herodotus 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. xxxi 

that some Greek story-teller has put into his 
career an heroic deed, and made him a tyrant- 
expeller or a tyrant-slayer. This was a favorite 
theme of Greek romance, as we see by the tale 
of Harmodiu'S and Aristogiton and of many 
others. On the whole, however, the heroism of 
Herodotus lay in a different field, which is amply 
illustrated by what we read of him in his book. 
The year of his return to his native city can 
not be told exactly, still its place in his life is 
reasonably fixed. His first apprenticeship to 
History he has faithfully served; he has pene- 
trated, as far as was then possible, to the remote 
past of the early civilizations found in the River 
Valleys of the Nile and Euphrates. The later 
rise of the great Oriental Empires in Media and 
then in Persia he has traced. This knowledo^e 
is somehow to be connected and organized with 
the historic facts of the Greco-Persian wars, 
about which he had heard in his younger days. 
Very different are the two sets of occurrences, 
but they have a unity, they show one grand 
movement of History, which culminates in the 
mighty blow which separates Orient and Occi- 
dent. Now the pivotal question with Herodotus 
at this time must have been, Can I portray this 
unity? Can I organize these diverse materials 
into a book which is itself a unity? We can 
imagine him re-reading his Odyssey which is 
also a return home (^iiostos) and delving into 



xxxii INTBODUCTION. 

its subtle structure, in order that he too may be 
a builder of the mighty Deed in words. Many 
hints he gets from that Homeric source, but he 
concludes that he cannot sing his theme in the 
present age — which by the way was the mistake 
of uncle Panjasis, whose work has totally 
perished. He must have felt that the creative 
period of the old Epos has gone, and that the 
time for a new literary expression, that of His- 
tory, has come. 

Many signs of this new form of utterance, not 
epical, not lyrical, not even poetic, have shown 
themselves in the Greek cities along the coast of 
Asia 'Minor, and in the adjacent islands. Par- 
ticularly at Miletus, then lying in ruins from the 
Persian conquest, but once the most flourishing 
city, both commercially and intellectually, of the 
whole Hellenic stock. History had already put 
forth its earliest buds in Hecataeus and Dio- 
nysius. Quite a list of the names of these pre- 
Herodotean historians have come down to us, 
with some few fragments of their works. 
Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos and 
Xanthus of Sardes are perhaps the best known 
of these eclipsed lights ; we learn that Milesian 
Dionysius had composed a History of Persia 
before Herodotus. In general that whole Greco- 
Asiatic border was already flowering with His- 
tory, which was verily the new expression of the 
time. Indeed we hear of an historian in the 



THE FATHER OF HI 8 TOBY. xxxiii 

West, Hippys of Rhegion, who ^ave an account 
of the Greek colonization of Sicily and Italy. 

Here we should note a striking correspond- 
ence. At Miletus Philosophy had already begun 
in Thales, who was also a forerunner in Science. 
Not in central or continental Hellas does Greek 
culture send forth its first bloom, but in the 
colonial borderland, especially that of Asia 
Minor. From this periphery Art, Science, Phil- 
osophy, and History also, will pass to the 
European mother-country, concentrating finally 
at Athens, which will unfold them to their 
hiojhest ancient maturity. Greek culture, oriofi- 
nating on the circumference of the Hellenic 
world, is first centripetal, and then having per- 
fected itself to its supreme manifestations in one 
City-State, becomes centrifugal, raying forth 
through the Macedonian and Roman Empires. 

Now Herodotus is living at the time when the 
great centripetal movement of Greek culture 
from the Asiatic colonial borderland takes place. 
There is no doubt that this flight of the free 
Greek Spirit evolving itself into all the higher 
disciplines, was caused by the curse of Persian 
domination. The autonomous Hellenic City- 
State was the institutional source as well as the 
protecting environment of the supreme forms of 
Greek civilization. Of course, in Asia Minor the 
rule of the Persian extinguished this all-sided 
development of the Hellenic Folk-Soul. Hence a 

3 



XXXI V INTB OD UC TlOm 

vast spiritual migration of the whole body of the 
Arts and Sciences began to flow toward Athens, 
the completely free City-State, which had freed 
itself and the continental City-States of Greece 
from the smothering domination of the Oriental. 
Moreover Athens had won a large political 
authority after the war with Persia, and was the 
real capital of the total Helkis. 

Our present interest is that Herodotus joins 
this migration, has to join it in order to com- 
plete that new discipline of his, not merely a 
History but the World's History. It would 
seem that the tyrant Lygdamis, under Persian 
authority still ruled in his city, which fact was 
deeply discordant with his theme. He had to 
seek an harmonious institutional environment if 
he would put the right spirit into his work. 

We may likewise infer that the returned tra- 
veler found the situation at home no longer pleas- 
ant. He could hardly settle down into the nar- 
row routine of a little household and of a little 
town, after having expanded his life through the 
known world, even to the Rim of Barbary. His 
conflict with the tyrant Lygdamis may be mythi- 
cal, still there was an inner conflict and probably 
a hard one. Like every traveler, ancient or modern 
who returns home after a long absence, he finds 
his place filled, things have gone on without him 
and do not need him ; he is a superfluity. Then 
what could he do with his large acquisitions of 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. xxxv 

knowledge in that small corner of Halicarnassus, 
quite out of the way of the world's movement? 
And eould he make there the grand transition of 
his life from the traveler to the historian? Not 
at all; so forth he must go. But whither? To 
the intellectual center of the Greek world. 

IV. 

It is not known in what year Herodotus began 
his permanent Athenian residence. In our opinion 
the peace of Callias (450-499 B.C.) represents 
about the time when he transferred his abode to 
Athens. There is good reason for thinking that 
this event had great significance in the life of 
Herodotus. He makes an allusion to the embassy 
of Callias and its presence at the court of the Per- 
sian King Artaxerxes (VII, 151), though the 
occurrence lies far outside of the scope of his 
work. The grand fact about this embassy is that 
it established peace between Greece or Athens 
specially and Persia, and thus was the ac- 
knowledged conclusion of the long Greco-Persian 
conflict, which had really lasted from the time of 
Cyrus wh© had subjugated the Greek cities of Asia 
Minor. These cities were now recognized as au- 
tonomous by the Persian king, and enrolled as 
allies of the Athenian Confederaey. Among them 
was doubtless, the native city of our Historian, 
Halicarnassus. By the treaty no war-ship of 



xxxvi IN TBODUC TION. 

I Persia was permitted in the waters of the Aegaean, 
which thus became practically an Athenian sea, 
and the whole Asiatic coast alonor this sea was 
turned toward Athens as its center of defense and 
of authority. Its people changed their poli- 
tical look from the East to the West. We shall 
find the same change in Herodotus, who now per- 
sonally and spiritually moves out of Asia into 
Europe — a transition reflecteil deeply in his book. 
Nor are we to forget the Persian advantages 
granted by the peace of Callias. Athens pledged 
herself to keep out of Egypt, to quit Cyprus, in 
fine to leave Persia alone in her assigned bounds. 
This was a very important step in the policy of 
Athens, who on account of her victories over the 
Persians had begun to dream of Oriental con- 
quest. Such a policy had been upheld by Cimon, 
but he died and disasters came, especially the 
terrible blow in Egypt. Then Pericles took the 
helm of State, and recalled Athens from her 
schemes of territorial conquest both in the East 
and in Hellas, really recalled her to her true 
destiny. Pericles foresaw the coming Pelopon- 
nesian War, and proposed to be ready for it 
through the one possible way, Athenian naval 
supremacy. But he also had an internal policy 
of developing his city, which thereby entered 
upon what is known as the Periclean age, famous 
,for its Art, Science, Poetry and Philosophy — 



THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. xxxvii 

spiritually the grandest creative epoch in the 
World's History. 

Now we are to see Herodotus plunged as it 
were headforemost into this Athenian whirlpool 
of intellectual activity. He was then somewhere 
about thirty-five to forty years old. He brought 
extensive notes of his travels in the East, essen- 
tially the Oriental part of his work, together 
with his explorations in the North and in the 
South. He has been hitherto the wanderer, the 
sight-seer, the diligent reporter. But now at 
Athens he is to become the Historian and is to 
transform his disjointed observations into an 
organic History. The supreme interest at present 
is to trace the influences which produced or 
helped to produce this transformation. 

First of all we are to note that in the Athenian 
capital Herodotus came upon a new line of his- 
toric events, those of continental Greece and 
particularly those of Athens. Some forty years 
before his arrival had occurred the victory of 
Marathon, and he could converse with many men 
still living who had been in that battle. Greater 
yet was the number of Athenian survivors of the 
war with Xerxes, ten years after Marathon. 
Certainly here was a fine opportunity for Herod- 
otus to "learn by inquiry." Athens was the 
center of the victorious repulse of Persia, and 
many of the victors were still on hand to give 
their experience. The Historian could easily 



XXX vni INTR OD UC TION. 

reach the famous battle-fields, see their monu- 
ments and read their inscriptions. Marathon 
was distant not more than a good day's walk; 
Plataea was but a few hours further, while the 
city overlooked Salamis. 

The chief fact of the stay at Athens, however, 
was that the Historian had to be transformed, 
and then he could transform or rather create his 
History. He must see the workings of the 
democracy, which had done the heroic deeds of 
the desperate war, and he must become sympa- 
thetic with it; thissympathy he shows repeatedly 
throughout his work. In the Orient he had 
known only absolute monarchies, he was born a 
Persian subject; moreover he was a Dorian by 
birth and probably of an aristocratic family. Evi- 
dently he had to get over quite a stock of 
prejudices ere he could feel himself a congenial 
Athenian democrat. Yet this he seems to have 
done. Having become harmonious with the 
institutional world around him, he is ready to give 
its History with the sympathy and admiration 
which its valorous action deserves. Detractors 
have indeed charged him with excessive partialit}^ 
for Athens, but the impression abides that he 
was not more partial to her than History itself or 
than the World-Spirit. 

In this Athenian school Herodotus must have 
learned other things necessary for his vocation. 
Speeches indeed he could find in Homer; but 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY, xxxix 

public oratory applied to historic events he could 
only witness in the Assembly of the People. He 
must have often seen and heard Pericles as well 
as opposing orators ; thus he could get acquainted 
with the spirit of Athens and learn much of her 
past history in the allusions of the speakers. 
From Plutarch is derived the statement that he 
knew the poet Sophocles, who addressed to him 
personally a poem. Herodotus was at Athens 
during the bloom of Tragic Poetry and its influ- 
ence upon him cannot be doubted. It may be 
said that he shows prevailingly a tragic view of 
the world, similar to that of the great Athenian 
tragedians. He could have been present at the 
first representation of Antigone^ which contains 
a passage very similar to one in his History 
(in, 119). The story of Adrastus has decidedly 
a tragic pathos of the fateful Athenian sort 
(I, 35-45). In fact the tragic Nemesis which 
overshadows the whole work, was gotten by the 
Historian from the Athenian consciousness of 
the time, in whose greatest poetic conceptions 
it finds expression. 

The Periclean age is noted for its dominant 
architectonic power : it produced the Parthenon 
and the Propylsea, of their kind the supreme 
edifices of the world. But this marvelous con- 
structive character is found not merely in archi- 
tecture, it belongs to other spiritual domains, to 
Literature and Philosophy, and gives the chief 



Xl INTRODUCTION, 

element of style to Classic Art. The dramas of 
Sophocles owe much of their beauty and power 
to their very simple yet very subtle structure. 
Plato is a builder in his way quite as much as 
Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, in whose 
pediments Phidias gives the greatest example of 
architectural sculpture. Athens having built her 
empire, became a builder at home, and all her 
spiritual products have this architectonic element. 
Now we are to grasp fully the relation of this 
phase of Athenian development to our His- 
torian, we are to trace its effect upon his genius. 
Herodotus became a builder too, a spiritual 
builder, and nobody can get to the heart of his 
work without penetrating and fully conceiving, 
yea formulating the constructive principle of it 
in the parts and in the whole. The profoundly 
artistic element of Periclean Athens he studied 
and appropriated till it became a portion of his 
spiritual nature, and not only transformed but 
transfigured his book, which is in the deepest sense 
a work of art. The student is, therefore, to re- 
build in his own soul the grand historic edifice of 
Herodotus, as unique, as epoch-making, and we 
hold, as beautiful in its way as the Parthenon. 
Indeed both these structures, so we may call 
them, rise up contemporaneously from the same 
great movement of the city and the age. 

There was another spiritual current for which 
the time of Pericles has become famous: the 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY, xli 

philosophic. It is highly probable that our his- 
torian may have seen a strange personage, bare- 
footed and snub-nosed, standing on the street- 
corners or shuffling through the market-place, 
in order to converse with the people upon the 
topics of the day, though in a new and peculiar 
manner, by question and answer. But in this 
process he employed an inner method of his own, 
which had the strange power of burning up all 
mere caprices, opinions, individual views, and of 
throwing the stress upon the creative thought of 
the object, the true concept of it, that which was 
universal. Herodotus, during his prolonged 
residence at Athens could hardly help meeting 
Socrates, and learning from him something by 
inquiry, since the historian was fully as inquisi- 
tive as the philosopher. We shall not try to 
reproduce their dialogue (after the fashion of 
Landor), only saying that our historian, though 
not naturally philosophic, has caught some notion 
of that elusive universal element and has in his 
way put it into his History. Indeed Athens has 
this universal element in all her deeds and words 
at this time, for have these not lived through 
Space and d4>wn Time? Her utterance has shown 
itself universal in Literature, Art, and Philos- 
ophy, being really for all ages and all countries. 
In this universality of Athens Herodotus has par- 
ticipated. Especially has he celebrated Athenian 
Solon as a philosopher, having put into his 



xlii INTBODUCTION. 

mouth the world-view which is distinctively 
Herodoteanin a dialogue with Croesus (I. 29-33). 
This dialogic form may have been caught up 
from Socrates (though not necessarily) but its 
full artistic development we find somewhat later 
in Plato. The doctrine of Nemesis, who seems 
to hover between a personal divinity and a philo- 
sophic abstraction, we consider also to have 
been a growth which the historian chiefly ob- 
, tained from contemporary Athens. To our way 
of looking, it contains a strand which connects it 
with the J^ous of the philosopher Anaxagoras, 
who was the friend of Pericles, and who lived at 
Athens during the entire stay oi Herodotus. 
Following the example of the great statesman, 
the cultivated Athenian studied philosophy, and 
supplanted Zetis with JSTous, The result was 
that religion entered Athenian politics and the 
enemies of Pericles preferred a charge of impiety 
against Anaxagoras, who was cempelled to leave 
the eity. It is to this s®urce that we are inclined 
to trace the thread of free-thinking which our his- 
torian shows woven through his religiosity. He 
has a tinge of what may be called the Athenian 
Aufkld7nmg, a skeptical turn which often curi- 
ously colors his dominant credulity. 

But there is one thing which Herodotus does 
not seem to have fully acquired at Athens : the 
complete mastery of the Attic dialect. It remains 
a matter of uncertain conjecture why our his- 



THE FATBEB OF HISTOBll. xliii 

toriaii did not employ Athenian speech for the 
composition of his History. What he heard 
around him and what he conversed in for many 
years, what had already become the vehicle of 
the highest poetic and literary expression, he 
for some reason rejected. We can understand 
why he, though a Dorian by birth rejected the 
Doric. But why he should prefer a form of the 
Asiatic Ionic, probably the Samian, to the 
Athenian Ionic, f 5 far more of a problem. Ulti- 
mately we have to think that he took the dialect 
most natural to him, and we know fr®m his 
History that he must have had some very inti- 
mate and lasting relations with the island of 
Samos (See Book III, passim and the following 
commentary pp. 243-5). This was in his youth 
when language weaves itself into the fibre of 
the mind. He may have believed, too, that the 
largest constituency for his book would be 
the lonians of the Asiatic coast, with their 
numerous cities and colonies. It is probable 
that Ionic was the lingua franca for commercial 
intercourse with the Mediterranean peoples of 
the East. Thus his History might reach beyond 
Greece. But the chief reason probably was that 
he never felt himself quite master of the niceties 
of Attic style, he always remained too much of 
a provincial, not having reached Athens before 
middle life when speech is no longer fluid in the 
soul but has taken its fixed form. Undoubtedly 



xliv • INTRODUCTION. 

the dialect is more naive and unreflective than 
the cultivated tongue, and we feel a certain suit- 
ableness of the vehicle to the manner and char- 
acter of Herodotus. He is far more of a spon- 
taneous artist than a thinker, in spite of his 
philosophizing. 

In this connection another question throbs up: 
How does it come that Athens herself, so full of 
all sorts of artistic expression, never produced 
the historian of her greatest deeds? It is Herod- 
otus, an Asiatic Greek, a Dorian of Halicar- 
nassus, who has transmitted to all time the 
account of Marathon, Salamis, Plataea, the 
supreme glories, as far as heroic action of a 
single community is concerned, of Athens, of 
Greece, if not of the entire World's History. It 
would seem that only an outsider, sympathetic 
and far-traveled, who knew both Persia and 
Greece, and in a way was of both, who had in 
him the Oriental as well as the Hellenic strains, 
could make the great historic synthesis required 
for recording adequately the Greco-Persian War. 
Athens was too one-sided to portray such a con- 
flict, even if the World-Spirit breathed upon her 
in doing the deed. Politically she was after 
all merely an Ionic City-State, and one among 
many of the kind. To be sure, she will later 
build an empire of her own, but that lies not in 
the theme of Herodotus. A transplanted Oriental 
Greek embraces the three elemental conditions: 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. xlv 

he must be an Oriental ; he must be a Greek — we 
might say a Doric Greek, for the Dorians took a 
strong part in the War, and even were (as 
Spartans) the leaders highest in command; he 
must finally be an Athenian, though an adopted 
one, for nowhere except at Athens could he 
drink of that World-Spirit, which was the over- 
mastering presence in the struggle. Nowhere else 
could he find the true information about Themis- 
tocles the most heroic character which the War 
brought to the surface. The Athenian, great in 
art, poetry, philosophy, forms of uttering what 
is universal, could not write his own history as 
universal, but had to find a man who spanned all 
the colliding elements of the age. Politically 
Athens could not be universal, could not even be 
mitional. 

But when the City-States of Greece began to 
fly asunder and assail one another, then Herodo- 
tus turns away — for he lived to see the Pelopon- 
nesian War — and another and very different 
hand, though an Athenian one, grasps the pen of 
History. Thucydides, born in Attica, can record 
the long and bitter conflict of his city with other 
Greek cities ; his theme is not that of united 
Hellas against the invading Orient, but of separ- 
ated Hellas against itself. He is the product of a 
divisive, analytic, self-undoing world, to which 
his mind and his style correspond. Intellectually 
the two great Historians are very different, and 



xlvi INTR OD UC TION. 

represent different tendencies. Historically 
Herodotus is Pan-Hellenic, while Thucydides is 
Athenian, though impartial and fair to all sides. 
Hence the latter must write in the dialect of his 
City-8tate, into whose institutional world he is so 
decidedly cast. 

Herodotus has, therefore, to pass through the 
Athenian spirit in order to get the universality 
of Athens, and to apply it to Historj^ — which 
strangely no gifted son of that city, so prolific of 
genius in other fields, seems able to do. It is 
through this baptism that History itself becomes 
universal, becomes the World's History. Other- 
wise Herodotus would have remained merely a 
collector of facts, a geographer, ethnographer, 
at most a local historian, giving an account of 
this or that couutrv durinor a certain time. He 
would never have risen beyond the numerous in- 
cipient historians of the Asiatic border, like 
Hecat8eus, Dionysius, Hellanicus and the rest. 
But his true destiny is to resume them all essen- 
tially in his own work, to organize into unity 
their fragments, to universalize that which is 
indeed only particular. As he rendered them 
complete, who were partial and incomplete, he 
rendered them unnecessary. The result is they 
have perished, while his grand totality has lived. 
Time, not needing them for its record, has let 
them drop quite into the sea of oblivion, 



THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. xlvii 

with hardly more than their names still afloat 
tied to a few fragments in some cases. 

In one thing he did not follow the Athenians, 
who had substantially eliminated woman from 
their History, in contrast with the Orient and 
even with the mythical aforetime of Hellas. 
Herodotus seems to have had a fondness for 
heroines, who retained in his mind their legend- 
ary prominence. Queen Tomyris, glutting the 
dead Cyrus with blood, shows the tragic intensity 
of Medea. But his favorite evidently is Arte- 
misia, queen of his own native Halicarnassus, 
who actually fought at Salamis on the Persian 
side and ran down and sank a ship in her way, 
as she was fleeing from capture, whereby she 
won the notice of Xerxes. The Athenians tried 
to make her a prisoner, "for they thought it an 
awful thing for a woman to dare make war upon 
Athens." So they set a prize for her capture, 
which she deftly eluded. In that word awful 
(^deinon) one may still hear Herodotus bantering 
his Athenian audience with a sly thrust of sar- 
castic humor (VIII, 93). He glorifies her as a 
kind of Amazonian Queen of old Greek legend, 
who had a second time invaded their country. 
For the mythical Amazons made an expedition 
against Attica and laid it waste — an instance 
which the Athenians themselves cite in their dis- 
pute with the Tegeans before the battle of 
Platsea (IX, 27). But one queries about Arte- 



xlviii INTB OB UC TION. 

misia: What emancipated woman of to-day 
would think of equaling her by taking command 
of an army in the field or of a squadron of ships 
in a sea-fight? Surely she is still far ahead of 
our age on one line of progress. 

In a degree, therefore, Herodotus restores the 
woman of the Greek Mythus to Greek History, 
going out of his way somewhat to do it, one 
thinks. In this regard he again stands in strik- 
ing contrast to Thucydides, who is narrowly an 
Athenian of the historic era in respect to women, 
not even mentioning Aspasia nor any other 
prominent woman. The mythical heroine has 
wholly vanished from his Hellenic world. 

But Greek culture having migrated to Athens, 
and undergone its transformation there, must 
migrate out of Athens, bearing the impress of 
her universality. Again our Historian plunges 
into the stream, and is now borne outwards, yet 
not back to the Orient but forward to the 
Occident. Into, through, and out of the Athen- 
ian discipline he passes, marking the main epochs 
of his life. 

V. 

It is not doubted that Herodotus made a 
change of abode and became a citizen or per- 
chance a colonist of Thurium, a new city founded 
in Italy upon the site of Sybaris (destroyed in 
510 B. C, by the neighboring city of Crotona). 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY, xlix 

The time when Herodotus is supposed to have 
quit Athens for his new home in the West is 
variously given; let us say 443 B. C, with good 
authorities (Clinton and Rawlinson). This would 
be some six years after the peace of Callias ; 
about the time of that peace Herodotus appeared 
at Athens as a permanent resident. But it is 
very doubtful if our Historian remained continu- 
ously at Thurium. He probably received his 
allotment of land and his right of citizenship. 
There are passages in his book which indicate 
that he must have been present at Athens re- 
peatedly after the given date of his settlement at 
Thurium. He did not need to give up wholly 
the central city for the colony, which turned out 
a very turbulent, seditious community. 

It is, however, a significant fact in the life of 
Herodotus, that he becomes the Occidental Greek 
after his Oriental and Athenian epochs. Thus 
he spans the three chief divisions of the Hellenic 
world, yea of all future History down to the 
present. Still from his book we may gather 
that he never fully identified himself with the 
Hellenic Occident, and of course he showed no 
indication of the coming Italy and Rome. He 
was perchance too old, and he was too bent upon 
setting forth the one great conflict, that between 
Persia and Greece, upon which in his time lay 
the stress of the World's History. 

It has been handed down that he wrougjht out 



1 INTBODUCTION. 

and completed his History at Thurium. The 
materials which he had gathered at Athens and 
in the Orient had to be put into artistic shape, 
being kneaded over from a great variety of 
notes, memories, investigations of many kinds 
during an entire life. Some parts must have 
been written out and possibly published before 
others or the whole. Keen critical eyes have 
claimed that they have seen the signs of several 
different editions in his work. There are pas- 
sages which seem to lack the author's final 
revision. There are possibly one or two malad- 
justments or even displacements ; still the whole 
has come down to us in a remarkably complete 
state. We see the finishing hand of the artist in the 
grand totality as well as in its larger and smaller 
details. In this respect we are acquainted with 
no historical work in existence to be compared 
with it. The modern historian is the victim of 
Time, and is swept along in mere temporal suc- 
cession. Undoubtedly the setting of History is 
Time, but watch what the old Father did with his 
child. In moving forward it is also to reveal the 
process, the return upon itself; History is not 
simply a line of events streaming outward to in- 
finity, not simply a line starting here and cut off 
there, even if it has a beginning and an end. His 
entire work is the advance and the recoil of the 
Orient back upon itself, in which recoil the great 
historic separation takes place — the separation of 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. li 

the Orient from Europe. That is his theme, the 
most important and deepest of History. Also it 
is universal, embracing both sides, Asiatic and 
European. Here we can see that Herodotus has 
written a World's History, while Thucydides is 
Hellenic, and not wholly that, for he is confined 
essentially to the civilized City-State of Greece 
and its conflicts. Herodotus shows far more 
interest in and appreciation of tribal Greece and 
the barbarous world, which, though in themselves 
unhistoric, will assert more and more a place in 
the totality of History. 

No biography of the Historian can neglect the 
transmitted fact that he gave readings from his 
work at Athens, and at various other cities of 
Greece. Eusebius states that the Public Assem- 
bly of the city decreed him a reward for History, 
some of which he had read before the people. 
Then he must have imparted his work privately 
to many persons. As an author, he could not 
help that. Indeed he must have tested his 
account of Marathon upon many Marathonian 
soldiers, not to speak of the thousands still living 
who had taken part in Salamis and Platsea. His 
narrative, as we read it to-daj^, has the flavor, 
the interest, perchance somewhat of the bias 
which comes of being taken directly from the 
lips of the Athenian combatants. He must have 
heard in the streets, at the banquet, and in the 
market-place, the famous battles fought over 



lii INTRODUCTION. 

again and ao^ain, with keen running comments 
upon the Spartans, their own Athenian leaders, 
and the Persian enemy. We can all judge of the 
situation by our American experience. Herodo- 
tus arrived in Athens about thirty years after the 
war with Persia. In every hamlet and farm- 
house of our land, North and South, the soldier 
who was present is still ready to give his account 
of battles and his opinion of the generals on both 
sides. Upon such an ever-bubbling fountain of 
History our eager reporter came, and of course 
began to take notes, sift statements and eliminate 
contradictions, seeking to get at the truth. Who 
does not recognize the difference in style and 
treatment between the first half and the second 
half of his work? So striking is this difference 
that the one half may be called Oriental, the 
other Hellenic. The latter chiefly springs from 
his stay at Athens, and takes color and concep- 
tion largely from the talk of her soldiers and 
sailors. 

Of course Herodotus found a gratified audience 
at Athens, since his work was in some of its 
chief aspects an Athenian reflection. And it 
had to be, if it were truly world-historical. For 
there can be no doubt that the Genius of Univer- 
sal History, otherwise called the World-Spirit, 
was brooding over the Attic city during that 
time, and bringing forth the pivotal events of 
the age. Some such presence our Historian 



THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. liii 

must have felt and soucjht to catch, harnessinsf 
it in his narrative, where we may still recognize 
it thousands of years later. Of course he read 
extracts from his work in order to hear the 
reverberations of the Athenian Folk-Soul to his 
words, and to re-echo its voice, filled as it was 
with the mighty destiny of the time which he 
was to shpw forth in his History. In some of 
his readings he may have met the young Thucy- 
dides, though tradition has placed their meeting 
at Olympia. 

It is reported that he wentto other Greek cities, 
Thebes and Corinth for instance, and to have 
held readings. If he did actually go to Thebes, 
he may have given an extract from his account 
of Egypt, with which that city claimed some 
mythical connection through its Egyptian name- 
sake. He hardly recited to the Thebans their 
conduct at Plata^a and the historic siege of their 
city by the assembled Greeks, a striking counter- 
part of its famous mythical sieges. If he read 
at Corinth, he probably did not select the unpa- 
triotic part which its admiral played before the 
battle of Salamis. He may have recited there 
the speech of the Corinthian Sosicles (V. 92) 
against tyrants. Most welcome would he be in 
the little town of Plateea, whose people shared 
with Athens the glory of Marathon, and which he 
must have repeatedly visited for the sake of the 
neighboring battle-field and its monuments. 



liv INTRODUCTION. 

Where Herodotus died is not certain; there 
are three different reports coming down from 
ancient times. Most probable is the statement 
of Suidas that he ended his days at Thurium, 
and was buried in the market-place. The time 
of his death is also unsettled. One improbable 
report makes him outlast the Peloponnesian 
War ten years, and carries his age up into the 
nineties. We are inclined to think (with Grote, 
Rawlinson and others) that he never lived to see 
the Athenian expedition to Sicily (415 B. C), 
which was the attempt of Athens to get possession 
of Occidental Hellas. The transfer of Athenian 
ambition from the East to the West would have 
forced from him some interpolation even more 
emphatic than the peace of Callias. 

We have to infer that he was alive at the death 
of Artaxerxes who died in 425 B. C. ; since he 
alludes to that Persian king's reign as past. Sev- 
eral years of the Peloponnesian War he lived 
through ; he speaks of the evils which had befal. 
len Greece not only from the Persians, but from 
the Greek leaders themselves (men and cities) 
warring with one another **for the supremacy" 
(VI, 98). From such a spectacle he turns away his 
eyes, leaving its record to a different Historian, 
Thucydides, whose theme is the inner self-undo- 
ing and dissolution of the Greek City-State, 
whereas the theme of Herodotus is its triumph 
over the Orient, which was indeed its culminat- 
ing act. 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY, Iv 



VI 

We are next to inquire about the institutional 
world which Herodotus portrays, and of which he 
is the great historical protagonist. Primarily the 
struggle between Asia and Greece is a political 
one, and turns upon the form of government 
under which man is to live. The Orient had its 
way of authority, its kind of State, born of its 
consciousness and adapted to its needs. But a 
new governmental form had sprung up among 
the Greeks, and manifested its first flowering 
along the coast of Asia Minor. The same politi- 
cal drift, however, was observable throughout 
all Hellas, which was engaged in building and 
bringing to completion the Hellenic City-State — 
a unique phenomenon in the World's History, 
and the herald of coming Europe. 

The political History of Greece, then, pivots 
upon the City-State as autonomous, exclusive, 
self-sufficing and self-contained. The entire 
Greek Nation has the tendency to break up into 
communal atoms, each of which longs to have its 
own law and life within itself, and to be connected 
as little as possible with its neighbors. Such is the 
fundamental fact of the Hellenic world, partic- 
ularly in contrast with the Orient, which unites, 
even if externally, cities, peoples, and races, 
solidifying them at least on the surface. This 
Oriental massification of humanity is shivered by 



Ivi INTBODUCTION. 

Greece into its individual constituents, both as to 
persons and institutions, each of which begins to 
unfold within itself and to insist upon its own 
separate career. The man and the community 
now get possession of themselves, and flower 
forth with an excellence which still remains 
epoch-making in the World's History. Greece 
starts to individualizing itself, and with it Europe 
also, and the process will continue through 
European civilization till the present. The colos- 
sal overwhelming Orient, as we see it in the 
Persian Empire, meets the small City-State of 
Athens at Marathon, and is whirled back upon 
itself with a mightiness and completeness which 
means the dawn of a new institutional order. 

At the same time the drawback must be acknowl- 
edged : the Greek defect of associative power. 
Such stress is put upon the individual community 
that it cannot combine with other communities 
for a great national purpose, or can combine but 
partially and temporarily and with great diffi- 
culty. The Greek people has no political unity 
till this be forced upon it from the outside, first 
by Macedonia and then by Kome. 

With Greece then, the second great stage of 
Universal History begins, the European, whose 
deepest character is indicated by the foregoing 
fact. Greece in separating from Asia, separates 
within itself, takes up separation into its national 
character, and remains separated and self- 



THE FATHEB OF HISTOEY. Mi 

separated to the end of its political existence. 
Now the manifestation of this trait is seen in the 
multiplicity of autonomous City-States whose 
aggregate is properly Hellas. Hence we call it a 
Polyarchy, being made up of many separate 
governments, like Europe of to-day. Hellas is 
accordingly, a Polyarchy of autonomous City- 
States, and will show, in its History the rise, 
bloom, and decline of a People having such a 
political organization. Thus it takes its place in 
the world-historical movement of the European 
State, being the first in line, the beautiful prelude 
of the whole historic drama of the Occident. 

Still we must remark that the Greek mind, 
with all its bent toward separation, held within 
itself an undercurrent of longing for unity. 
Thus it had a common religion, common centers 
of worship like Delphi, common festivals and 
games like the Olympian. In fact the very thing 
which originally separated the Greeks, the hate 
of the Orient, finally united them in repelling the 
Persian, and also in the expedition against Troy, 
which even if m'ythical, shows the spirit of the 
age. Then there was the common speech, the 
common mythus, and the common poetry of 
Homer. And there may be noted a deeper con- 
nection which, though unconscious, will at last 
burst up to the surface in action. That Greek 
speech, and also that Greek mythus, as we now 
know, had their roots far back in Asiatic lands, 



Iviii INTRODUCTION, 

to which Alexander will penetrate as if driven by 
the deepest instinct of his Aryan race to over- 
come its separation. 

How this undercurrent of Greek aspiration 
for national unity, though unable to make itself 
institutional in a State during its free historic 
period, will realize itself to a degree in Macedon 
and Rome, but most adequately in Byzantium, 
is not to be set forth in this place. But at the 
time of Herodotus, the Greek conception of free- 
dom stands in the way. That freedom finds 
itself possible only in the limited autonomous 
City-State, which being small and easily con- 
querable, is destined soon to be snuffed out. It 
is true that with Greece freedom may be said to 
have been born into History, which is to show 
more and more complete forms of its realization 
in the unfolding of political institutions. Greece 
indeed shows the earliest, perchance the most 
beautiful, yet the most fragile flower of freedom 
which has ever bloomed in time. Such was the 
political limitation of the Greek ; he could create 
no great nation to safeo^uard that free individu- 
ality of his, but only a little City-State, which 
showed almost no power of combining with other 
City-States for its own security. 

Now it is this political institution whose 
struggle with its supreme foe, the Orient, our 
Historian records. Long and doubtful it was ; 
indeed on the coast of Asia Minor the Greek 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. Hx 

City-State could not maintain itself. But its 
world-historical triumph took place in European 
Hellas, notably through Athens, and that triumph 
essentially means the historic birth of Europe, 
which has now asserted and vindicated its own 
political world, and henceforth is to have its own 
History. 

Greece has, accordingly, developed and upheld 
that form of human association which we call 
the City-State, in which each citizen has to be 
and to live his life through his whole community 
— the city. As he is associated in and through 
all the rest of his fellow-citizens, he has 
supremely the need of speech, which is called 
forth by the need of association. This requires 
that men communicate frequently, clearly, and 
in a variety of ways. 

Hence comes that wonderful Greek expression, 
which has been far more lasting than the com- 
munity from which it took its rise. First of all 
these forms of expression is the Greek tongue, 
which is the child of communal freedom. No 
one man makes it, for even to ancient Homer it 
<;;ame as a gift already existent, alon^ with his 
My thus. Language is made by associated man, 
and the Greek language by associated Greeks in 
their communal intercourse. But from the same 
source other forms of expression arose, such as 
sculpture, painting, music. Now our Herodotus 
it is who has given the first real expression to 



Ix INTBODUCTION. 

History, that is, to the World's History, record- 
ing the supreme deeds of the Greek City-State, 
when these have become world-historical 

Let it be said here that the Orient also ex- 
presses itself, but inadequately when compared 
with the Greek, who has made his expression 
universal and hence lasting. Egypt's expressien, 
Babylon's expression both in speech and art — 
how undeveloped, confined, and concealed! The 
human race first begins to burst out into 
adequate utterance in Greece, which talks and 
sings and chisels and paints, not only for itself 
but for all futurity. The Oriental undoubtedly 
associated himself in communities, in cities, and 
in large ones; still he received his law from 
above, from the monarch, who chiefly needed to 
speak and not the people, as these are to obey 
the God-sent man and word implicitly. This is 
what the Greek was inclined to challenge ; the 
City-State, in which he participated as citizen, 
voiced the law for him, often after deliberation 
and discussion. The associated Greek ultimately 
expresses what associates him, and what keeps 
him an associated Greek — the City-State. Into 
this institution he seems to be cast as into a 
mould. It is curious to see how completely fixed 
in the City-State are even the philosophers, 
Plato and Aristotle, who ought to transcend it, 
if anybody. But their political writiiigs seek to 
restore it when it has had its day, and when a new 



THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. Ixi 

political order has already set in. Herodotus, 
however, portrays its bloom and highest 
triumph; though before he died, its disintegra- 
tion had begun. 

VII. 

Our Historian does not give the origin of the 
Greek City-State ; in fact he does not directly 
propound the question of its origin. How could 
he? It is his fundamental pre-supposition, the 
thing taken for granted, of which he is not fully 
conscious. He had not the historical perspec- 
tive, he could not look back through a long 
evolution of governmental forms, which later 
History furnishes to the investigator of to-day. 
To be sure, he had before him the Oriental 
empire, which furnished a strong contrast to the 
Greek City-State. Therewith, however, his ex- 
perience with political institutions quite ended. 
It is true that the various forms of the City- 
State — democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy or 
tyranny — were present to his mind and had to be 
treated historically in his work. The well-known 
discussion of these three forms in his Third Book 
he projects out of Greece into Persia. Still in 
them he is describing actual varieties of the 
Greek City-State, not possible kinds of Persian 
government. Undoubtedly, too, he mirrors 
opinions which he heard in debates, private and 
public, at Athens. 



Ixii INTRODUCTION. 

Herodotus, though he is unaware of the origin 
of the basic Greek institution, furnishes many 
materials for reaching back to its earlier stao^es. 
The extraordinary interest which our Historian 
took in barbarous peoples, and the large space 
devoted in his work to their description, show 
that he felt instinctively their importance in the 
'World's History. The kinship of civilized and 
uncivilized Hellas was hardly known to him, and 
still more remote from his knowledge was the far 
wider kinship of the Aryan race, through which 
indeed the Greek and the Persian were related. 
Comparative Philology had not yet unlocked these 
racial secrets. Still he has left us the most complete 
ethnographical j^ccount of ancient Europe. He. had 
not the usual Greek narrowness and exclu- 
siveness toward barbarians. What we have else- 
where called the ethnic protoplasm of History he 
has given quite fully, even if in its separative, 
disconnected form. The dip back into this 
primitive racial stuff, which both Greece and 
Rome had afterwards to take, lay not of course 
within the historic experience of Herodotus. Yet 
he with a kind of premonitory instinct prepares 
History long beforehand for such a dip into its 
original creative sources by his extensive investi- 
gation of barbarous peoples, who lie all around 
and beyond that borderland of his which we call 
the Rim of Barbary. Moreover out of these bar- 
barous peoples unfolded the Hellenic City-State, 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. Ixiii 

evolving from their primordial Village Community 
into the stage in which Herodotus beheld it and 
its achievements. 

Still more decidedly does our Historian suggest 
the movement from the older Oriental civilization 
into the newer Hellenic culture. The continuity 
of the line of City-States from the River- Valleys 
of the East to Greece is certainly hinted, even 
if not explicitly developed. The account of 
Egypt and Babylonia, both of which contained 
large cities, is a kind of preparation and prelude 
to the heroic deeds of the far smaller Greek City- 
States. There is always implied and sometimes 
expressed a connection as well as a contrast be- 
tween the two worlds. Oriental and Hellenic, as 
well as their respective political and communal 
forms. Very interesting too is the attempt at a 
comparison of religions, notably that between 
the Egyptian and Hellenic Gods. Herein we may 
see the beginning of Comparative Religion, which 
has been supposed to belong to our own time. 
Of course the Greek Pantheon is the standard 
of comparison, for what other standard could 
Herodotus have? A line of evolution, therefore, 
runs out of the Oriental City-State with its de- 
veloped civilization into the Greek City-State, 
and our Historian in his way draws that line. 

He is also strongly geographical, but he is 
hardly conscious of the unique physical feature 
of Greece, namely its islands and peninsulas, 



Ixiv INTBODUCTION. 

whereby it is more intimately connected with 
the sea than any other part of the globe, receiv- 
ing therefrom a powerful influence in moulding 
its character. Insular and peninsular Hellas is 
quite all Hellas. 

Such, however, are the three constituents which 
come together in order to form the Greek City- 
State — an ethnical, a civilized, and a physical. 
These we may set forth somewhat more fully. 

We shall, accordingly, seek to trace briefly the 
origin of the foregoing Hellenic City-State whose 
importance in European History can hardly be 
overestimated. In fact, we mav well deem it 
the germ from which all later forms of govern- 
ment in Europe have sprung. Still it too has its 
antecedents, or elements from which it originated. 

The first of these elements is the civilized one 
coming to Greece from the huge cities of the 
Orient situated usually in its great Kiver- 
Valleys, as the Nile and the Euphrates. In them 
civic organization started and was transmitted; 
in them men began to associate under law which 
was the will of the autocratic ruler. From the 
River-Yalley the Oriental City-State passed to 
Phoenicia on the Sea, the intermediate stopping- 
place, where was developed the marine City- 
State with its commerce to distant lands through 
navigation. The heir of Phoenicia was chiefly 
Hellas, even if Carthage was of its own blood. 
With the Greek City-State on the ^gean a new 



TEE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY, Ixv 

order begins, European History opens, as we see 
in Herodotus, the first great Historian, himself a 
product of that order, and native of a marine 
City-State. Thus the huge massified civic com- 
munity of the Oriental Kiver- Valley is broken up 
into many independent small ones. 

But whence did their people come ! Not from 
civilized Babylon and Thebes, but from the 
uncivilized Aryan migration which kept flowing 
in pre-historic ages out of Asia into Europe. 
This stream of migration at unknown times 
turned down into the three Mediterranean penin- 
sulas, Greek, Italic and Spanish, and remained 
till the historic era. This background in later 
Greece was known as the Pelasgic stpck, the 
rearward element which lagged in the rapid 
march of Greek civilization. Proto-Hellenic or 
even Proto-European we may deem this element, 
out of which the future peoples of Europe are to 
be formed by a power in themselves, yet also 
above themselves, moulding them gradually into 
the civilized Nations. This artificer of Europe 
begins with the rude and crude Aryan material, 
and shapes it into Hellas first, institutionally into 
the Hellenic City-State. He is the Prometheus 
who transforms that given primordial clay into 
the Greek man and his civilizati'on. This Aryan 
clay we shall call the ethnic protoplasm, out of 
which Europe is to be shaped, the process going 



Ixvi INTBODUGTION, 

on from that day to this, and not yet being 
ended by any means. 

What did this old Aryan humanity bring along 
in the way of institutions? The Family cer- 
taiaily, and it may be added, the primitive Vil- 
lage Community, which they bore with them as 
their simple means of association. But descend- 
ing into the Greek peninsula, they at an early 
day came upon Oriental civilization, which flowed 
in along the coasts over the sea, brought chiefly 
by the Phoenician trader. The result was both 
friction and fusion, by means of which that 
primal institutional germ became wonderfully 
developed into a totally new character. But why 
was it not massified like the Orient in its River- 
Valleys, whose original communities had been 
united and solidified into enormous cities? Here 
Nature enters with her help at the right moment. 

The physical conformation of Greece has been 
much emphasized, and with justice. But we 
must not think, as some writers seem to have 
done, that Greek Nature generated Greek Spirit. 
If this were so, it ought to be productive still, 
and to bring forth Greek Peoples with their art, 
literature, with their sundry excellences and de- 
fects. But it is the surprise of History how com- 
pletely and how suddenly such productivity of 
Nature stopped and never recovered its fertility 
in generating genius. Still there can be no 
doubt that natural conditions had a decided 



THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. Ixvii 

effect upon the social and spiritual development 
of Greece at a given time, when all was fully 
prepared. 

Already we have called Greece a peninsula, 
and we may also note that this one peninsula is 
split up into many peninsulas, running into the 
sea and marrying the same to the land. It is 
through this peninsular character that sea and 
land are so closely interlocked and interrelated 
in Greece. Moreover the territory becomes sepa- 
rated into many small divisions shut in by sea- 
walls as well as by mountain-walls. A glance at 
the map shows how completely Nature has indi- 
vidualized the Greek territory, making it 
naturally the home of small, independent, quite 
disconnected communities. To this physical fact 
we must add another bearing even more strongly 
in the same direction : the Greek sea is full of 
islands, in which the separation by water is com- 
plete. Thus Greece is quite as insular as penin- 
sular (let us say again), having no great plains, 
no great rivers like the Orient with their exten- 
sive valleys. 

Let us now conceive the waves of migratory 
humanity, that original Aryan protoplasm of 
peoples, sweeping into Europe and wheeling 
down into the Greek peninsular and insular terri- 
tory, and settling there. Necessarily the mass is 
broken to fragments by the hand of Nature her- 
self, thrusting them into these manifold divisions 



Ixviu INTBODUCTION. 

of a small territory. Each fragment is not only 
separated but protected by physical ramparts, to 
which artificial walls are soon added. Thus there 
starts an inner local development of each com- 
munity, Nature cuts off external power over 
them and remands them to themselves. Still 
there comes across the sea near at hand a com 
merce with a higher civilization, a knowledge of 
other lands and peoples, as well as the grand fact 
of navigation. Thus civilized Orient begins to 
weave itself into these little communal units, 
without subjecting them, however, or massifying 
them. Aspiration is kindled in each of these 
small centers; the Greeks become learners, 
appropriating and transforming their Oriental 
heritage in accord with their newly-developed in- 
stitutional form, which grows with time into the 
autonomous City-State . 

Next we must notice another physical fact : 
these islands and these peninsulas, though sepa- 
rated, are in clusters, are grouped together 
around some kind of a common center. We may 
consider continental Greece to be three peninsulas 
each rising over the other up to the Balkans. 
The Peloponnesus rays out from its Arcadian 
center into peninsular fingers reaching for the 
sea and dallying with its waters. The islands 
of the ^gean are mostly arranged in two 
clusters: the Sporades near the Asiatic mainland 
and the Cyclades which seem to be a continuation 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. Ixix 

of the Greek peninsulas. Thus the separated 
Nature of Greece has a tendency to associate its 
members in an independent fashion, reflecting 
therein another trait of these autonomous Greek 
City-States, that of hegemony or of free 
co-operation under a leading member of a group. 
Such are the three strands which we can now 
trace into the Greek City-State — a civilized 
(coming from the Orient), an uncivilized (racial, 
communal), a physical (chiefly insular and 
peninsular). None of these can be left out of 
that Greek political institution which starts 
European History, and which is the underlying 
foundation of our Historian's work. 

vm. 

Herodotus already sees that History does not 
stop with him, or perchance with his City-State; 
he places over it a God or a Power, which acts 
through itself and brings forth historic events 
according to a motive or end. The name which 
our Historian gives to such a supremacy is 
mainly Nemesis, who humbles a Da-rius or a 
Xerxes, the most exalted of terrestrial rulers. In 
such a conception lies faintly what we have 
called the World-Spirit, the Genius presiding 
over History, or the Spirit of the World's His- 
tory, the latter being quite impossible without 
such a Spirit directing it to its end. Herodotus, 
we affirm, has glimpses of th^ World-Spirit and 



Ixx • IN TROD UC TION. 

seeks repeatedly to formulate it in his way, other- 
wise indeed he could not have written a world- 
historical book. 

Now the most significant act in the movement 
of History, or of this World-Spirit, is the coming 
and going of States, especially their coming or 
their origin. In other words State-makinof is 
the genetic, ever-renewing process of the World's 
History. That ethnic protoplasm, of which we 
have already given a brief account, is really the 
orio:inal formable material out of which States 
are made. Who makes them and causes them 
to appear at the given time, or as we may well 
say, at the right moment? In our view, that is 
the chief, though not the only, function of the 
World-Spirit. The Nemesis of Herodotus rather 
presents the negative power in History, the 
humiliation of great States, and their evanish- 
ment. And it must be confessed that even the 
Hegelian World-Spirit is more decidedly nega- 
tive than positive, since it is not so distinctly 
and impressively unfolded as State-builder, but 
it is more emphatically the World-Judge con- 
demning the particular State for its historic 
shortcomings. 

Still Herodotus has given, in his fashion, the 
important process of State-making, as this de- 
veloped in the Greek world. Of course that 
which must be reproduced is the Greek political 
form, the City-State. This State-producing act 



THE FATHER OF HI 8 TOBY. Ixxi 

is called colonization, which plays a very con- 
siderable, though somewhat disconnected, part 
in our Historian's work. Each autonomous 
City-State is seen bearing City-States which 'are 
also autonomous, like the parent. Significant is 
it that the Father of History dwells with so 
much detail upon colonization, which is properly 
the Greek State-making. To be sure it is given 
as sporadic, instinctive, without conscious direc- 
tion or supervision. Still it manifests mightily 
the working of the World-Spirit of that age. 

Such is the first historic form of the repro- 
ductive act of the European State as recorded 
by its earliest Historian. It is instructive to 
compare Herodotus in this regard with the later 
and latest modes of the fundamental process of 
State-making. For the time has come when 
this can no longer be left to mere impulse and 
haphazard migration, which is that of barbarism ; 
it must be rationally controlled in the interest of 
the supreme end of History, the State universal. 
And the modern Historian must begin to become 
conscious of it and its place in his science — 
which is hardly his mental condition as yet. 

The History of Europe shows a continuous 
line of States arising and ceasing, a row of 
births and deaths of political forms. What is 
behind this process or above it perchance, and 
commanding it? If there be any purpose in this 
grand historical pageant, we must invoke the 



Ixxii INTBODUCTION. 

controlling agency which has such a purpose. 
Here we place (we repeat) the world-historical 
Spirit, which, as its name indicates, is the Spirit 
which presides over History (shorter, the World- 
Spirit). 

But at this point we wish to take a general 
survey of the manner of birth of European States. 
They spring up by an unconscious instinct ; man 
is a political animal, says Greek Aristotle; man 
builds States naturally in Greece and in Europe, 
as the beaver builds his dam. To be sure in 
this instinct the World-Spirit is working ; Euro- 
pean History therefore shows States bubbling 
up, one after the other, and one beside the other 
in a chaotic fashion. Yet on the other hand 
they are controlled more or less externally for 
the end of Civilization. The migratory impulse 
is their first source moving in the main blindly 
and driving tribes to strange lands. State-mak- 
ing in Europe has, therefore, had no supervision, 
no rational direction from the State, which is 
both its origia and its end. 

But it is certainly the outlook and the need of 
the State-making process, that it be rescued 
from caprice and chance. The State must rise 
to be in itself the State-making State ; its genetic 
function, the most important one, must no longer 
take place in an uncertain random way. It 
must formuhite this principle and embody it in 
its constitution. Such a constitution the modern 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY, Ixxiii 

European Nation-State has not yet made and 
cannot, since it as imperial produces provinces, 
not States. If the society of European Nation- 
States ever unfolds from international Law or 
from the Hague Tribunal to an iDternational 
Constitution, the State-making provision will be 
in order. 

In this connection it may be said that the Con- 
stitution of the North-American Union is the 
first to regulate and determine legally the process 
of State-making. From this point of view it is 
the outcome of the European mevement, having 
made the creation of States explicit and pur- 
posed from the previous more or less implicit 
condition. Provinces and colonies it no longer 
strictly produces, but States which are equal 
members of the Union, joining them into one 
political organism. Thus arises in History the 
State-making State constitutionally, which has 
in its turn to be continually made or re-made by 
the States which it has made. Each new State 
sending its Senators and Representatives to the 
Capital shares in the State-making process of 
the whole, or it has an equal part as State in 
governing not only itself but the rest of the 
States. Another function the American Union 
of States has now recently taken upon itself: to 
train purposely and consciously backward 
peoples into equality and unity with itself, 
which means not to enslave or even to subject 



Ixxiv INTRODUCTION 

them — not to Hellenize or Romanize or even 
Europeanize them, hy governing them from a 
central State in whose government they have 
no prospect of participation. Sooner or later 
the people or race which does not fully share in 
■governing itself is going to make trouble. Self- 
government realized in institutions is the aspira- 
tion of mankind. The test of any form of State 
will be: How far does it satisfy that aspiration. 
To be sure, such an independent individual State 
is not the supreme historic end, for it too must 
be associated with other individual States in the 
movement toward the realization of the State 
universal. 

Especially in the Nineteenth Century the his- 
toric trend of the society of European States is 
to endow with a Constitution each State of the 
society. That is, the inner movement of Europe 
is to constitutionalize itself through and through. 
Autocracy is to come under law, the Executive 
is not to be the one absolute power. The people 
of the State by their representatives are to par- 
ticipate in making the law which they obey, and 
the Monarch also is to act legally. Thus Law 
as universal is fast being enthroned in the Euro- 
pean system of States. Russia,, properly the 
most recent member of it, is seeking to establish 
a little bit of Constitutional government in the 
present year (1906-7). If she does. Consti- 
tutionalism in one form or other will have nindc 



THE FATHEB OF HI 8 TOBY. Ixxv 

the circuit of Christian Europe, though even 
Turkey has been talking of it. 

What is the model after which Europe has 
sought to constitutionalize itself? No doubt it is 
England. In one way or other the English 
Constitution has been the type for the enormous 
amount of Constitution-making which started 
with such fecundity in the French Revolution, and 
is destined not to cease for some time yet. To 
be sure, these are all written Constitutions, like 
the American, while the English boast that theirs 
is unwritten, and they set forth the advantages 
of such fact. Still we have to say that England 
developed the political Norm for contemporary 
Europe. This Norm was substantially completed 
by the so-called Eevolution of 1688, and tested 
at home during the following century, after which 
it began to become European in the Nineteenth 
Century, taking possession strongly of the pop- 
ular mind and finally of the various States. 

We cannot help thinking, however, that 
Europe must in its political evolution transcend 
the English constitutional Norm, and England 
herself must too. For it has not the three 
Powers of Government co-ordinated, but all 
three subordinated to a subordinate power, that 
of Paliament, which is properly but a branch of 
the legislative Power. Certainly the more per- 
fect governmental process is that of the three 
essentially equal and co-operant Powers. Still 



Ixxvi INTB OD UC TION. 

the English Norm is the easiest for a people who 
are just starting to perform the act of self- 
government, they must not undertake too much 
at once, they cannot leap from absolutism to a 
completely organized freedom at a single spring. 

Nor has the Ens^lish Constitutional Norm a 
provision for State-making, and cannot have 
since it issues from and applies to the European 
Nation-State, whose imperial character would be 
destroyed by such a provision. Only the Federal 
Union of the United States could formulate and 
establish a true State-making process, could pro- 
vide for the birth of autonomous and equal 
States, as distinct from provinces and subject 
States which belong to an imperial government 
like the present Nation-States of Europe. For 
even England rightly calls hers an Empire, and 
her people and parliament rule distant nations 
without these participating in such rule over 
themselves, even if they have a quite full local 
autonomy like Canada. Of course in such judg- 
ments the American Constitution is taken as the 
criterion of Europe ; the latest historic manifes- 
tation of the State shows what they all have 
brought forth. Hence they must be judged by 
their fruits, particularly by the last fruit, which 
is the American. 

Naturally in present Europe the question comes 
up. What next? We must take note that out of 
this Aryan ethnic protoplasm of Peoples the 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY. Ixxvii 

European States have been formed one after the 
other and together, till the material is used up 
practically, and the European group of States is 
complete. Quite recently two great States, Ger- 
many and Italy, have been nationalized. Europe 
has started the same process with lesser peoples, 
of which the Balkan group, partially at least, has 
been made over into Nations, being wrested from 
the crushing hand of Turkey, foe ®f European 
nationalities. Thus Europe as a whole seems to 
be taking a hand in State-making within itself ; 
but outside of itself, in the Orient and elsewhere, 
it hardly yet shows any such tendency. 

Though this process of State-formation in 
Europe has been blind, irregular, and wasteful 
of its material, still there has been over it an 
order, a forming power or demiurge we may call 
it — which has led on the way toward realizing 
the great end of History, the universal State. 
This, however, we must again repeat, is the 
World-Spirit, which thus has operated more or 
less externally in the matter of European State- 
making. But in the American government the 
attempt is to put each outside power inside the 
State, making the same an element of its work- 
ing organism, which we therefore call from this 
point of view, the State-making Slate. In other 
words, the World-Spirit in the American Gov- 
ernment has been constitutionalized, havings been 
taken up into the process of the State itself. 



Ixxviii INTB ODUC TION. 

In such fashion we cast back glimpses from 
the latest History to the earliest as recorded by 
the first Historian. We are to see in him the 
historic germs which have unfolded into the 
completer History of to-day. His explication is 
his true explanation. The little Greek City-State 
of his time has indeed had a wonderfal evolu- 
tion. From this point of view one may well 
affirm that the History of Herodotus is an orig- 
inal document, the most original and originative 
of all historic documents, having produced His- 
tory itself as a human discipline. He cites little, 
he refers to some books ; but for the main facts 
of his narrative he is the voucher, and he is the 
chief source not only of the recorded events but 
of History itself, which without him, would not 
be, at least not as it is. Marathon was indeed 
anyhow, as an event, but what would it be to 
us without the record of Herodotus? To be 
sure, many writers after him copy him, Grote 
copies him, but what a difference? In these 
days we hear much about going back to original 
authorities. But of all historic authorities Her- 
odotus is, we repeat, the most original, being the 
creator of the science which his successors can 
at best but produce in a new garb of events. 
Let the student take to heart that there is just 
one and only one primal creative document of 
History — our Herodotus. 



THE FATHEE OF HI 8 TOBY, Ixxix 



IX. 

In regard to the religious world-view of 
Herodotus, we observe a decided change from 
that of Homer. The Olympian Pantheon hardly 
appears, except casually and quite in the back- 
ground. Pallas was indeed visible in the battle 
of Marathon, and Pan met the courier Phidip- 
pides on his way to Sparta for help against the 
Persians. Still the regular epiphany of the 
Gods, so strikingly organized in the Iliad, is not 
the method of Herodotus, who has made the 
transition to the Oracle, particularly that of 
Apollo at Delphi. The Homeric play of divini- 
ties is largely gone, being supplanted by their 
divine voice uttered through the prophet or 
priestess. Apollo no longer appears and speaks 
as he did at Troy (where he even fought), but 
he inspires the Pythia to respond for him, as at 
Delphi. This last is what Herodotus takes up 
into his History, in contradistinction to the way 
of the Epos. The religious heart of the Herodo- 
tean world is the Delphic Oracle which pulses its 
blood through his entire book from beojinninoj to 
end. Moreo^er this oracular consciousness is 
that of the Hellas of his age, namely of the 
period of the Greco-Persian War. Delphi was 
then the religious, yea the national center of the 
Greek race. Still it could not organize this 
sentiment of common blood and nationality into 



Ixxx INTBODVCTION. 

one State. It could, however, defend itself 
aojainst Persia and the Orient. 

Olympian Zeus has, accordingly, passed in the 
main the scepter to Delphic Apollo, whose his- 
toric mouthpiece for all future time is just our 
Herodotus. Not more decidedly is Homer the 
eternal recorder of Zeus and his Olympian world, 
than Herodotus is that of Apollo and his Delphic 
world. It was at Delphi that Greece tapped the 
stream of futurity, and interrogated her destiny, 
as we see everywhere in our Historian. Upon 
his pages we follow the Hellenic Folk-Soul trying 
to uncover its own mystery, and to glimpse its 
own task and fate in the mighty crisis at hand. 
In other words Hellas sought to know the decree 
of the World-Spirit through the response of the 
Oracle, especially in reference to the grand con- 
flict between itself and the Orient. 

After Herodotus rises another religious world- 
view which finds its highest expression at Athens 
in the Goddess Pallas Athena, and in her temple, 
the Parthenon. Self-conscious intelligence de- 
thrones oracular wisdom. Herodotus during his 
Athenian residence caught and appropriated 
many a gleam of the new order with its critical 
attitude toward the old view, still he as a whole 
remained Delphic and oracular. In his work the 
World's History opens with Croesus, yea with 
Croesus consulting the Delphic Oracle (see Book 
I and the following commentary). The historic 



THE FATHER OF HISTOBT. Ixxxi 

record of this new Athenian world is not and 
cannot be given by Herodotus, but by a very dif- 
ferent historian, Thucydides, also the child of his 
city and time. 

Undoubtedly our Historian introduces other 
ways of getting a revelation of the future — 
dreams, visions, omens, floating prophecies and 
oracles. These we cannot specially dwell upon, 
in the present connection. But we must revert 
to a view of his already mentioned, a view quite 
beyond the oracular or even the Olympian con- 
ception, namely that of Nemesis. In this view 
Herodotus tries to define the inherent nature of 
all divinity with two main predicates : first, the 
ruling God of the world and of its events is in 
action a leveler, abasing what is exalted ; sec- 
ondly, the motive for such action is his envy. 
The view is stated almost as an abstract principle, 
yet also is tinged with a divine personality ; 
moreover it is chiefly uttered by the two philos- 
ophic characters, Solon and Artabanus (Book I 
and yil). However unsatisfactory such an 
opinion may be now, the chief interest remains 
that the earliest Historian endeavors to formulate 
the universal principle governing the World's 
History. In other words he has his philosophy 
of History, and takes pains to interweave it 
. through his narrative of events, whereby it too 
starts on its evolution down to the present. 
His doctrine of Nemesis was derived from 

6 



Ixxxii INTBODUCTION. 

what he saw and read .of the colossal govern- 
ments in the Orient. Xerxes above all others 
is the grand example of the divine leveling of 
the loftiest monarchs, among whom however are 
also to be counted Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, 
Oriental sovereigns, as well as the successful 
Greek tyrant Poly crates, who tries to escape the 
inevitable principle, The Historian's Nemesis 
really manifests that Greek character which 
shuns excess of all sorts, and is the divine power 
which punishes the infraction of Greek modera- 
tion on the stage of the World's History, In 
Herodotus the autonomous City-State is hardly 
subject to Nemesis, of which it is indeed the 
executor upon the Oriental and Greek imperial 
tyrannies of the age. The Nemesis of the City- 
State, therefore, lies outside the historic ken of 
Herodotus, still it will come (see Thucydides, 
passim). 

In sentiment our Historian is not simply com- 
munal or tribal, but truly Pan-Hellenic. He 
participates deeply in the national Folk-Soul, 
sympathizing with it in its desperate struggle 
with the Orient. AH its ways of utterance are 
not only his but naively and naturally his — 
story, myth, anecdote, proverb — which he 
weaves into and through his total work. Espe- 
cially does he respond to its probing into the 
future for the purpose of finding out what is its 
portion in the coming clash of two worlds, what 



THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. Ixxxiii 

the Supreme Orderer intends to do with it in the 
battle of principles. The Folk-Soul seeks to 
commune with the World-Spirit, sometimes 
through very inadequate means. Herodotus 
does not fail to record them, and thus reflects 
truly and vividly the consciousness of the time 
in little as well as in large. 

But the true and higest mediator between the 
Folk-Soul and the World-Spirit is the Great Man 
of the period, the Genius who embodies both 
these ultimate elements of the World's History. 
The mighty collision between Greece and Persia 
produces such a Man, and Herodotus recognizes 
him fully and portrays him in his exalted func- 
tion. This Great Man of the Age was Themis- 
tocles, the Athenian commander specially, but 
universally the lord over all Greece, forcing it 
even against its own will to obey and to fulfil the 
decree of the World-Spirit, which he alone rightly 
heard and adequately realized. In the Eighth 
Book our Historian shows him in his supreme 
deed and character: how he has prepared his 
little City-State with a navy, how he persuades 
its people to leave their old home on land and go 
down into their new home on their ships, how he 
compels his own side to battle at the right mo- 
ment and in the right place, how he directs even 
the movements of the hostile Persians. Limit- 
transcending he is on all sides, surmounting ob- 
stacles in every direction, he seems to be one with 



Ixxxiv INTB ODVC TION. 

the all-controlling God; indeed he interprets the 
ambiguous, if not dissuasive Delphic response for 
his countrymen, and thus makes himself the real 
Oracle of the grand crisis. 

For this reason the Eighth Book with its battle 
of Salamis may be regarded as the culmination 
of the Historian's whole work, indeed of the whole 
era which it depicts. On the other hand the 
Seventh Book is deeply depressing, verily tragic ; 
the death of Leonidas with his three hundred 
Spartans at Thermopylae is the death of free 
Greece, unless another City-State than the Spar- 
tan, and a different leader from Leonidas get 
control. The Eighth Book shows the grand 
chano-e to Athens and Themistocles, which means 
the victory of Greece, the triumph of the City- 
State, and indeed the permanent separation be- 
tween Europe and Asia, the deepest rift of 
World's History. (See Walh in Hellas, pp. 
419-425). 

The division of the History of Herodotus into 
nine books, called the Nine Muses, did not prob- 
ably originate with the author. It is usually 
ascribed to the Alexandrine grammarians. The 
Ninth Book shows the completed victory over 
the Persians at Platsea and Mycale. The ques- 
tion has often been asked whether the History is 
finished. There is no doubt that the conclusion 
seems somewhat abrupt. Still the taking of Sestos 
on the Hellespont may well be deemed the final 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY, Ixxxv 

act of the great war. The total theme was 
stated to be the conflict between Greece and 
Asia, bringing about the separation between 
Orient and Europe. In the Ninth Book the 
reader misses Themistocles ; Aristides commands 
the Athenian land forces at Platsea and Xanthip- 
pus commands the fleet at Mycale. This Xan- 
thippus was the father of Pericles, in whose time 
Herodotus resided at Athens. 

This fact leads to the reflection that a good 
deal of our Historian's knowledge of Themis- 
tocles may have been derived through the son 
from the father, Xanthippus, who was the rival 
of Themistocles and was doubtless an important 
subordinate commander at Salamis. Some of 
the secret designs ascribed by Herodotus to 
Themistocles sound very much as if they had 
come from a political opponent, who is com- 
pelled to acknowledge the great deed of his 
rival, but disparages it by assigning to the doer 
a selfish motive. The next year after Salamis 
we find that Xanthippos had supplanted Them- 
istocles in the command of the fleet. The lat- 
ter' s motive [in keeping open a way for fleeing 
to the Persian king, while dealing to him the 
hardest blows, has rather the appearance of an 
after-thought derived from the later career of 
Themistocles, and emphasizing his doubleness in 
contrast with the honesty of Aristides. 

The Greco-Persian conflict, however, did not 



Ixxxvi INTB OD UC TION. 

end in a definite peace between the belligerents 
till the convention of Callias (450-449 B. C.) 
nearly thirty years after the capture of Sestos 
by the Greeks, with w^hich the History of 
Herodotus properly concludes. In this peace of 
Callias the great separation between Greece and 
Persia, or between Orient and Europe, is ac- 
knowledged by both sides, and becomes a per- 
manent element of the historic consciousness 
from that day to this. The conflict between 
these two powers, Greek and Persian, if we 
reckon it from the time at which Cyrus appeared 
in Asia Minor, taking Sardes (546 B. C.) and 
subjecting Greek cities, had lasted nearly a cen- 
tury. Of course the larger conflict, that be- 
tween Europe and Asia, had begun much earlier 
(Homer's Iliad is based upon it, when fully seen 
into), and has lasted much longer, even unto the 
present day. 

One of the difficulties of Herodotus is that 
Chronology, or the science of historic time, does 
not yet exist, though it is dawning. He has a 
tendency to reckon backward from his own time, 
which promotes if it does not force his viewing 
events in historic cycles. Still he has no com- 
mon standard by which he can arrange occur- 
rences synchronously. Indeed there were many 
such standards in the Greece of his time; Sparta 
had a public register of her kings, and probably 
of the respective lengths of their reigns. Each 



THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. Ixxxvii 

important temple had a list of its priestesses from 
the beginning ; Athens had its line of yearly 
Archons which became a kind of era. Of course 
these diverse standards were confusing. Finally 
the Olympiad, taken from the common Greek fes- 
tival, became the common or chronological stand- 
ard, being first employed, it is said, by the histor- 
ian Timseus (flourished about 260 B. C). He 
was a Sicilian residing at Athens, and wrote of 
the Grecian affairs in the West (Sicily and Italy) 
for an audience of Eastern Greeks, who nat- 
urally demanded a common measurer of distant 
events synchronous with their own. Thus the 
era of the Olympiads arose and became general. 
This was two centuries after the time of Herod- 
otus. 



THE FATHER OF HISTORY 
{HERODOTUS), 



BOOK FIRST, 



What rank does this Book hold among the 
entire nine Books of the work? As a composi- 
tion we are inclined to place it foremost of all. 
It does not contain events as celebrated as some 
in the last three books, such as Thermopylae, 
Salamis, Platea ; still its artistic finish stands 
paramount, as well as its great picturesque 
variety, with hues ever shifting between Orient 
and Occident. On the whole, it furnishes the 
best field for studying the grand conflict por- 
trayed in the total work, the conflict between 
Hellas and Asia. It also gives the best material 
for observing the most important psychological 
fact in all History, namely, the rise of the his- 
toric consciousness in the race, which now looks 
at itself and records itself in its deeds. 

(1) 



2 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

The Book falls into three main portions : — 

I. The preliminar}'^ portion, which gives the 
prehistoric, mythical account of the conflict, the 
antecedents of the historical struggle. The 
Trojan War is indicated as the first or mythical 
counterpart to the Persian War (1-5). 

II. The Lydiad, or the history of Lydia in its 
conflict with the Greek cities of Asia Minor, 
wherewith History, as conceived by Herodotus, 
starts into existence. In the Lydiad the setting 
as well as the fundamental conception are his- 
torical, but the mythical stream keeps playing 
into this historical movement and strangely 
transforms it into a new kind of composition, 
v\^hich we may call an epical History. The 
Lydiad is undoubtedly the most highly wrought 
portion of the Book, indeed of the entire work. 

The difference between these two portions 
may be designated in a general way as follows: 
the Introduction is the mythical with the his- 
torical playing into it and ordering it ; the 
Lydiad is the historical with the mythical play- 
ing into it and giving to it variety, relief, color. 

III. The Persiad, into which the Lydiad un- 
folds, as the lesser into the greater, the local 
conflict into the universal one, with all Hellas on 
one side and all Asia on the other. Thus the 
two threads of which the whole is spun, are the 
Greek and the Asiatic, each being unfolded in- 
ternally and externally to the grand climax in 
the Persian War. 



7. PBELIMINABY. 

The first five chapters constituting a kind of 
title page and prefjice, have a distinctive charac- 
ter. They deal with the mythical events which 
led up to the great historical war now to be 
recounted. They connect Herodotus with 
Homer. It is worth our while to look into their 
meaning with some fullness. 

1. Tlie title-page. Such we may designate the 
first paragraph, consisting of five or six lines in 
most texts and translations. The word History 
is here used by our author, who has transmitted 
it to succeeding ages. The primary sense of the 
word in Greek is investigation or inquiry; the 
corresponding verb means to ask^ and is con- 
nected by its root with the verb to knoiv ; thus 
we reach the first signification of History as 
knowledge through inquiry. 

Next we hear the author's motive for such an 
investigation : ** that human events may not be- 
come obliterated by time, and that great deeds, 

(3) 



4 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

done by both Greeks and Barbarians, may obtain 
their share of renown." He is filled with the 
idea that he must preserve the memory of worthy 
actions ; he gives the labor of a life to make them 
eternal. Such is the spirit of the author, truly 
historical. 

We should also note that he is of Halicarnas- 
sus, is a Greek born in Asia Minor. He belongs 
to both Orient and Occident ; his birth tends to 
make him sympathetic with both sides. This is 
the reading of all the manuscripts, though a 
passage of Aristotle designates him as a Thurian. 
But only in the last years of his life did he have 
his residence in Thurii, a town of Southern 
Italy. 

Manifestly the worth of the human deed, when 
done by the free-acting individual or community, 
has strongly impressed itself upon the mind of 
Herodotus, and drives him to give it a lasting 
record. Particularly that deed of the Persian 
War is deserving to be handed down to all future 
time; really it begat in the race the historic 
consciousness, which feels that it must transmit 
itself to the comino; ao^es. The Orient has no 
such history, for it does not recognize the worth 
of the individual ; how can it then recognize and 
record the worth of his deed? The Oriental 
subject is a slave ; who is going to record a 
slave's doings? Not the slave himself nor the 
master ; then servile deeds are not worthy of 



BOOK FIBST. 5 

being recorded, not at least till they are done for 
the sake of freedom. But now the great his- 
toric deed has been done, the man with an 
historic spirit is also present ; the result will be 
a History. 

Moreover it is hinted that a deep difference 
has arisen in the race through its passage from 
Asia into Europe, the difference between Greeks 
and Barbarians, the latter here meaning the 
Asiatics. A great war between the two sides is 
the consequence, which war is the theme of the 
present work. Still further, the cause of the 
conflict is to be investiii^ated ; that is, we are to 
get back to its inner ground. Thus already the 
principle of causation begins to be applied to 
History. 

2. The preface. The first question pro- 
pounded, then, is : Who are *' the causers of the 
difference?" Whereupon the matter is carried 
back to the prehistoric mythical time and traced 
down into History. It is plain that the distinc- 
tion between the mythical and the historical is 
present to our author's mind, not well-defined to 
be sure, still present and at work. Equally 
plain is it that both Mythus and History shared 
in this difference between the East and the 
West. 

Greek Mythology has, as one of its chief 
themes, the conflict between Orient and Occi- 
dent, the struggle between the Hellenic and the 



6 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Oriental spirit. Perseus and the sea-monster, 
Theseus and the Minotaur, Oedipus and the 
Sphinx, Belierophon and the Chiniaera are in- 
stances of fierce combats between Greek heroes 
and Oriental shapes, or monsters hostile to the 
Hellenic ideal. But the greatest of all these 
mythical deeds of Greece against Asia is that of 
the capture and destruction of Troy. Herodotus 
we shall find on many lines to be the successor 
of Homer, certainly distinct from him, yet 
growing out of him. 

On the other hand, the greatest of the histori- 
cal deeds of Greece against Asia was the defeat 
of Xerxes, also a ]:)hase of the grand conflict 
between Hellas and the Orient. The Greek 
Mythus of Homer and the Greek History of 
Herodotus have fundamentally the same theme, 
though the one be poetry and the other 
prose. Still we shall find that the Historian's 
form of tieatment as well as his subject-matter, 
is interlinked deei)ly with the poet's. In this 
preface we may see a kind of biidge thrown over 
from the Mythus to the beginning of History. 

In early fable the conflict takes the form of 
stealing high-born women — piincesses and even 
queens. Each side seeks to possess the other's 
beauty, or ideal, though doubtless there was 
often a literal stealino^ of women in those rude 

CD 

ages. In our Historian's time the question 
arose: Who was the first ago^ressor? Who is 



BOOK FIBST. 7 

in the wrong? The matter was evidently de- 
bated with no little intensity both in Greece and 
in the Orient. 

Now Herodotus cites and apparently adopts 
the Persian view of this antecedent mythical 
period, openly rejecting the Phoenician vi*ew and 
silently passing over the Greek view. *' The 
Persians learned in history affirm the Phoeni- 
cians to have been the causers of the difference." 
Some sailors belonging to this people, visiting 
Argos for the sake of trade, stole lo, the king's 
daughter. So reprisals take place, and the feud 
begjins, continuin^jj in a kind of mvthical see-saw 
between East and West. Three king's dauorh- 
ters, those favorites of the fairy-tale, are seized 
in succession, till finally the beautiful queen her- 
self, Helen, is taken and carried to Asia. Then 
the grand expedition to Troy takes place, in 
which all Greece participates. 

The followinsj list will show the movement as 
set forth by the Historian : — • 

1. The taking of lo by the Phoenicians from 
Greece. 

2. The taking of Europa by the Greeks from 
Phoenicia. 

3. The taking of Medea by the Greeks from 
Colchis, 

4. The taking of Helen by the Trojans from 
Greece. 



8 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Such are the four mythical cases here given. 
Note that they are arranged chronologically, and 
connected together by the common thread of re- 
taliation ; that is, they are arranged into a sys- 
tem. It should also be observed how extensive 
and how deep is the struggle; Medea belongs to 
the northern belt of Asiatic Persia, and is prob- 
ably Aryan, though there is some question con- 
cerning the ethnic affinities of her people, the 
Colchians; Europa belongs in the South to a 
Semitic people; Helen is of Greece and is taken 
to Troy, which lies in Asia Minor. This myth- 
ical survey, accordingly, quite takes in the west- 
ern boundary of Asia from North to South, and 
includes its two leading races, Aryan and Semitic. 
Thus the two sides, Hellas and the Orient, stand 
arrayed against each other in fable. 

This preface leads to many reflections, the 
reader may well deem it an important document 
in the genesis of the present History and of the 
historic consciousness generally. He may profit- 
ably dig out its main presuppositions, and bring 
them up to daylight ; some of these we shall set 
down as they have occurred to ourselves in med- 
itating upon the work in hand. 

1. It is manifest that Oriental peoples are 
taking an interest in Greek Mythology, and trans- 
forming it in accord with their own spirit. Per- 
sians and Phoenicians are here cited, each giving 
a peculiar turn to mythical incidents; later we shall 



BOOK FIRST. 9 

find the Egyptians doing the same thing (Book 
II). Especially Homer and tlae Trojan War they 
interpret from tlieir own point of view, which is 
antagonistic to the Greek conception. Thus 
Greek Mythology is reacting upon its sources, 
and is flowing back to the East whence it sprang. 

2. The legend of lo is here alluded to ; it is 
interesting to see how the three peoples, Greeks, 
Persians, and Phoenicians have handled the same. 
According to the Greek story, lo is a virgin 
priestess beloved by Zeus and hated by Hera, 
watched by the many-eyed Argus, transformed 
into a cow which is driven by the gad-fly through 
many lands, till at last she reaches the Nile where 
she bears Epahus and becomes the mother of a 
race of heroic kings, obtaining again her human 
shape. A tale with a marvelous, divine element 
interwoven into its fabric — such is the Greek 
poetic conception ; but the Persians make her 
simply a stolen woman, and the Phoenicians a 
runaway woman, voluntarily quitting home on 
account of an intrigue with a ship-captain. In 
the last two cases, the su[)ernatural ideal element 
is entirely eliminated, and the whole thing sinks 
down into prose. Such is the Oriental treatment 
of the beautiful Greek My thus of lo; so al^o the 
Egyptians will treat fair Helen. 

3. The meaning of the Trojan War is strongly 
emphasized; it too was a conflict between Orient 
and Occident. The Persians did not care for 



10 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

the capture of single women ; for what is the 
individual to them? He has no rights, let him 
go. But these pesky Greeks, when Helen was 
stolen, raise a great pother, and " bringing to- 
gether a mighty armament, go against Asia and 
raze Troy, all for the sake of a Lacedemonian 
woman." Such an act is indeed outside the 
Oriental consciousness, which deems it to be 
merely wanton violence. Accordingly '* in the 
capture of Troy the Persians find the beginning 
of their hatred for the Greeks." Here again 
the key-note is touched; it is the worth of in- 
dividuality over which the conflict between Hel- 
las and the Orient takes place; for the Greek, 
unless that one person Helen be restored, then 
all the Greeks are lost. Moreover Persia rep- 
resents Asia and the Orient: '* they consider 
Asia and the peoples inhabiting it to be their 
own, while Europe and Greece they hold to be 
distinct." Homer, therefore, in the Iliad 
records the first great conflict between Orient 
and Occident. 

4. The mythical wave of retaliation transmits 
itself into Histor3^ Xerxes regards himself as 
the punisher of the Greeks, and the avenger of 
the Trojans; on his march from Sardes against 
Greece he visited the citadel of Priam, made a 
great sacrifice of a thousand oxen there, and 
caused libations to be poured out in honor of the 
heroes (VH. 43). 



BOOK FIRST, 11 

On the other hand, Alexander the Great in his 
expedition against Persia visited the Trojan local- 
ity, and regarded himself as the avenger of the 
Greeks and the pnnisher of the Persians. Thus 
the Greek Mythus of Troy vibrates through all 
Greek history even down to the present, in which 
the Turk is the Oriental intruder in Europe. 
The antagonism between Greek and Turk is the 
old one, starting on the plains of Ilium, if not 
farther back; it is the deepest dualism of the 
World's History, in fact it is just that separa- 
tion in the race which called forth the World's 
History in its continuity. Herodotus is, there- 
fore, the first true historian, veritably the Father 
of History, inasmuch as he is the first writer who 
has grasped and recorded this grand dualism in 
its chief deed, which produced the historic 
consciousness. 

5. Homer's Iliad, accordingly, furnishes the 
pulse-beat of the preface before us; but we can 
also find in it traces of the Odyssey. Herodotus 
may be regarded as a sort of Ulysses wandering 
over the world in search of knowledije ; *' he saw 
the habitations (asfea) of many men and knew 
their mind" (Od. I. 3). The historian employs 
hero that same Homeric word (asfea, habitations) 
in reference to himself (5) : *' I, going over the 
small and great habitations of men, shall move 
forward with my narrative." Likewise the 
Phoenician story of the captured Greek woman 



12 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

lo has a strong resemblance to a case told in the 
Odyssey (Book XV.) ; in fact, the hist half of 
the Odyssey gives a number of tales in which 
occur abductions of men, women, and children 
at the hands of sea-faring men, both Greeks and 
Phoenicians. Eumaeus the swineherd is such 
a stolen child. 

The mythical account related in this preface is 
put into a kind of system, with an ordering prin- 
ciple, inasmuch as all these cases are not given 
singly but are connected together in a series of 
wrongs and retaliations. Moreover they are ar- 
ranged in succession of time, in a chronological 
order ; the deed of Paris is specially marked as 
having taken place *' in the second generation 
after " the stealing of Medea. 

Thus the My thus begins to be divested of its 
supernatural element, to be rationalized, systema- 
tized, and chronologized; it is indeed becoming 
historical. We may say of this preface of Hero- 
dotus that it still has a mythical subject-matter 
or content, but an historical form ; it shows that 
the historic consciousness is penetrating the 
Mythus and ordering the same after the pattern 
of History. It is, therefore, an instructive doc- 
ument indicatinor the transitional stao^e of the 
mythical on its way into the historical, a half-way 
station between the Trojan and the Persian time. 

But our Historian has now furnished his pref- 
ace, and is going to pass into his true field. He 



BOOK FIRST. 13 

has let the OrientJils give their side; but he will 
not vouch for its truth, though he probably 
thinks that they have the best of the argument 
in the mythical instances. He moves at once to 
the historical instance: *' whom I myself know 
to have begun doing wrong to the Greeks, him I 
shall designate (5); " doubtless he has in mind 
Croesus, ** who was the first of the Barbarians 
that subjected Greek cities to tribute (6)." 

This Introduction is a pretty good sample of 
what is known in Greek Literature as mythogra- 
phy, which seeks to arrange the persons and 
events of mythology by some principle, ordering 
them in time, and rationalizing them often ac- 
cording to some theory. Before the age of Herod- 
otus the mythographers had appeared, and 
shown an historic sense springing up inside the 
mythical sense. Our historian will never free 
himself of the influence of this antecedent epoch. 



//. THE LYDIAD. 

With Croesus, the Lydian king, the history of 
Herodotus makes its start, going back about one 
hundred years before the Historian's own time. 
We call this portion of the first Book the Lydiad, 
derived from Lydia, of which country the history 
is here given. The name is intended to be anal- 
ogous to and suojojestive of the word Iliad, 

O DO ' 

derived from Ilium, which was the seat of the 
Trojan War. Moreover this entire account of 
Lydia (embracing chapters 6-94), is manifestly 
an evolution out of the Iliad; it is the epos going 
over into history, it is poetry transmuting itself 
into prose and not quite getting there. Already 
we have noticed that, to the mind of Herodotus, 
the Trojan conflict and the Persian conflict were 
essentially one — the grand conflict between 
Orient and Occident. And the struggle of the 
Greeks with Croesus was another chapter of the 
same story. We know also that Herodotus 
was steeped in the Homeric poems, and he, a 
(14) 



BOOK FIBST. 15 

native of a Greek city which was subject to 
an Oriental monarch, probably felt the con- 
flict of the Iliad as we cannot feel it at 
this distance of time. Nor should we for- 
get that his uncle and educator, Panyasis, was 
an imitator and resuscitator of Homer. This 
History of Lydia we may well term an epical 
History, partaking of the nature of both the 
Epos and of History. It is, therefore, properly 
placed at the beginning ; it is historical yet with 
epical elements moving through it everywhere, 
a grand metamorphosis of Homer into Herodo- 
tus. Mark, we do not say that it is imitated or 
copied from the Iliad; it is transformed there- 
from, and thus becomes a new species of com- 
position. 

The reader probably wishes — or, if he does 
not, he ought to wish — to penetrate more fully 
into this genesis of the historian from the poet. 
We have named the Lydiad an ejtical History; 
what are its agreements and disagreements with 
the Iliad, the Epos? Let us mark down a few 
points. 

(1) Both the Iliad and Lydiad have the same 
theme, the conflict between East and West. (2) 
Both have essentially the same locality — the 
boundary line running North and South between 
Asia and Europe, along which line the two 
contestants have arrano^ed themselves throuo^h 
all ages down to the present. There have been 



16 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

oscillations in each direction, forward and back- 
ward over the line; but to-day it is drawn in the 
same place essentially where we see it in the Iliad 
and in the Lydiad. (3) Both have a central 
figure, a hero — Achilles in the Iliad and Croesus 
in the Lydiad. Yet into both are woven many 
episodes and incidents pertaining to Troy and to 
Lydia, making an elaborate environment in 
which the central figure acts. (4) Both open 
with short passages (prooemium ) which call 
attention to this central figure and his pivotal 
de (1 — the wrath of Achilles and the injury 
of Croesus to the Greek cities. Both, too, 
show the penalty coming home to the man for 
his deed ; both, therefore, suggest a cycle of 
action, and are rounded out to completeness ; 
both, accordingly, leave an artistic impression. 

Still the Iliad and Lydiad are very different ; 
in the latter we can see the historical element 
entering and dominating the epical. (1) 
Chronology comes in and arranges the dynasties 
and events of the Lydian kingdom according 
their succession in time, ending in the capture 
of the city, Sardes. But the Iliad is not a his- 
tory of the Trojan War, not a chronicle of its 
occurrences, though many are introduced, nor 
is the city. Ilium, taken at the end of the 
poem. In this fact can be seen that 
the outer setting of the Lydiad is histori- 
cal. (2) The Olympian world of the Gods, 



BOOK FIBST. 17 

with their continued interference in the affairs 
of men in the Iliad, quite vanishes out of 
the Lydiad. There is still an overruling order, 
but not so much by means of personal deities 
as abstract princii)les, such as fate, nemesis, 
divine envy, also divine justice. Different from 
these as well as from Homer is the Oracle, 
which pUiys such an important part in Herod- 
otus. (3) In the Lydiad the stress is clearly 
upon the free-acting individual, the infinite 
worth of the human deed has begun to be 
asserted and hence recorded. In the Iliad man 
is also free, yet in his freedom he is still the 
instrument of the Gods; over him and his deed 
hovers the divine volition — ** the will of Zeus 
was accomplished." (4) Herein lies the funda- 
mental ground of the distinction inform — the 
one is prose, the other poetry. The will of the 
Supreme God is the cosmos or divine order in 
the Iliad, which must be measured and sung, 
while man must be attuned to it at last through 
all his caprice and opposition. So we have in 
Homer the rhythm of the Gods, the hexa- 
metral attunement, which catches up the 
mortal in his wildest . tumults and wan- 
deringfs toward chaos and orders him to a 
musical movement. On the other hand in 
Herodotus this measured sweep breaks up into 
prose, as it records man's free action, which can- 
not be encumbered by the trammels of verse in 

2 



18 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

its utterance, which causes the Gods and their 
measured gait to recede into the background. 

As already stated, man has now risen to the 
consciousness that the fact is the great object of 
research, and is what is worthy of being set down 
in writ for all time. Prose thus begins, not 
poetry, which is truth but not fact. The reality 
with all its dissonance of free-acting individuals 
enters with power, and its scribe is the sober his- 
torian, not the musical bard, whose function 
it is to bring all into the harmony of Zeus, as 
well as into the rhythmic utterance of the same, 
which is his verse. 

ThisLydiad, therefore, is worthy of study not 
simply for its historical value, but for its psycho- 
logical purport, being an important document in 
the psychology of the race as it makes the trans- 
ition from myth to fact. We may see the epi- 
cal consciousness moving into the historical, 
Troy tranfusing itself into Sardes, Achilles into 
Croesus, Homer into Herodotus. 

I. Lydia. — This country is the western center 
of Asia Minor, and doubtless had a mixed popu- 
lation of Aryan and Semitic. Still almost 
everything about the ethnic affinities of the 
Lydians is a matter of dispute among the 
learned. Not the least of the problems ])ertain- 
ing to them is the question: Were they tht* 
parent stock of the Etruscans in Italy? It is 
our intention to shun this field of erudite ccn- 



BOOK FIRST. 19 

jecture, and to o^rasp for the main fact at once. 
And the main fact in the present case seems to 
be that two great race-streams, the Aryan and 
the Semitic, in their migrations toward Europe, 
met each other with a considerable shock in 
Lydia, both handing down strong indications of 
themselves into the historic asre. 

The course of this movement we may con- 
ceive as foUows : The Semites, coming from the 
Southeast, from the direction of Syria and 
Arabia, dropped offshoots of themselves through 
the lower and middle portions of Asia Minor 
(such as the Cilicians, the Solymi and probably 
the Cappadocians) and finally reached Lydia and 
the sea; the Aryans coming from the Northeast 
and East, from the direction of Armenia, drop- 
ped offshoots of themselves (such as the Phry- 
gians and Mysians) till they too reached Lydia, 
finding the Semites there iiefore themselves, 
probably. The two currents of migration swirl- 
ing in together, met at first in strong opposition 
doubtless, then they united and grew together as 
one nation, which always bore traces of its 
double origin. Compare the Saxon and the 
Norman in England. 

Lideed Asia Minor must have been in prehis- 
toric times a mighty seething cauldron of strug- 
gling peoples, which in their movements westward 
had been forced in between the two seas, the 
Euxine and the Eastern Mediterranean. The 



20 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

two main races of human culture, Aryan and 
Semitic, were violently thrown together in Asia 
Minor, as if in some preparatory training for the 
World's History. The center of this ethnic 
maelstrom seems to have been Lydia, which be- 
came the most important nation of Asia Minor, 
when its conflictins: elements had settled down 
into harmony and coalesced into one people. In 
Lydia Herodotus places the opening of his His- 
tory, and starts there the great conflict between 
Orient and Occident in its historical mani- 
festation. Let us observe who are here the 
contestants. 

Lydia undertakes to subject the free Greek 
cities which had sprung up along its coast. But 
whence came the people of these cities? Across 
the Aegean, from the continent of Europe chiefly ; 
Greece had sent out colonies to the coast of Asia 
Minor; these had some land, but their chief 
possession was the sea with its commerce. 

A very progressive set of people they were, 
far more advanced and enterprising than their 
mother cities. Colonization had sifted out, as it 
often does, the strongest and most daring spirits 
of the land, also those with new ideas in their 
heads. The result was a line of Greek com- 
munities along the eastern coast of the Aegean, 
which led the civilization of the world in the 
sixth century before Christ. Miletus was the 
daughter of Athens, yet the daughter soon fir 



BOOK FIRST. 21 

outstripped the mother both politically and 
intellectually. It took Athens something like 
one hundred years to overtake Miletus. Greek 
ideas — philosophy, science, history — first rose 
c'lnd flourished in these cities; especially the 
Greak political idea, the autonomy of the civic 
community, with strong leanings toward democ- 
racy, was fostered and deeply cherished. Con- 
tinental Hellas seemed backward, stolid, helpless, 
while this marvelous new life was stirrins: in the 
cities along the coast of Asia Minor. These 
citizens were at that time the most Greek of the 
Greeks. 

Strongly opposed to the Greek political idea 
of autonomy is the Asiatic idea, which is essen- 
tially that of absolutism. Now comes the clash. 
Lydia was evidently the most forward of the 
Asiatic States of Asia Minor; she was also near- 
est to the most forward of the Greek cities. 
Such were the conditions; a border conflict 
sprang up, which rose to be the conflict between 
Greece and Persia, between Europe and Asia, 
between Occident and Orient. But here was the 
germ — the border war between Lydia and the 
Greek towns of the coast, verily the most sig- 
nificant of all border wars. And we may add 
that here history came distinctively into being, 
born of the struggle between Greek freedom and 
Asiatic absolutism. For all History is essen- 
tially the record of man's struggle into freedom, 



22 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

and this struggle first started for mankind along 
the Lydian border. 

Such are the two sides in opposition; yet, in 
spite of themselves, a double process is taking 
place, each is modifying the other. Lydia is 
being Helleuized, it adopts Grecian customs, 
especially it recognizes the Delphic Oracle, which 
was the principle of unity in Greece, and for this 
reason probably was more acceptable to the 
Lydian consciousness. Lydia clearly rejected the 
political, but was inclined to accept the religious 
phase of Greek spirit. On the other hand, we 
shall see the Greek cities of the coast affected by 
their Asiatic environment, they will lose their 
intense Hellenism, or at least the resolution to 
defend it will wane, and they will become 
Oriental subjects, though not willing subjects. 

A further result will be that both the Lydians 
and these Greek cities cannot be taken as the 
final bearers of the great conflict ; the Lydians 
are too Greek, and the Greeks too Oriental. 
The conflict started between them will gradually 
pass into other and mightier hands, till it finally 
embraces two continents. 

Such was the situation, such the combatants, 
such the conflict. But why is History, that is 
the World's History in its continuity, arising just 
here and now from a petty border war? It is the 
primal effort of a free community of free men 
asserting their freedom against servitude 5 such 



BOOK FIRST, 23 

a struggle is worthy of being recorded for all 
time by man for man, since he must remember 
it and be inspired by it to maintain his true self- 
hood. He is now becoming really a man ; the in- 
dividual thereby affirms his infinite worth, in fact, 
his immortality, when he makes his deed immortal. 
History is begotten of the consciousness that the 
individual must be self-determined, and hence 
imperishable, if his deed is not to perish. The 
pulse-beat of all Occidental History down to the 
present, the struggle for a higher liberty, is felt 
on this early page of Herodotus recording this 
conflict between Lydia and the Greek cities of 
the coast. 

Very familiar does History seem to us now, 
but it was a great step, the step out of Asia into 
Europe and even across into America. The 
beginning of this marvelous step rose into dis- 
tinct consciousness on the border-land before us, 
which also furnished the Historian, our Herod- 
otus. But even he had predecessors, he was 
evolved out of a long series of mythographers, 
geographers, chroniclers. Probably the forerun- 
ner who came nearest to him was Hecataeus, 
belonging to that Miletus which was itself the 
spiritual forerunner of Athens, its own mother. 

The Lydiad of Herodotus let us note again, is 
the most highly finished and carefully organized 
portion not only of the First Book but of this 
whole work. We believe that the student, if he 



24 THE FA THE B OF HIS TOBY. 

masters it, will possess the most typical product 
of our Historian, as well as the key to Greek 
History, including the very rise of the race's 
historic consciousness. 

II. Time before Croesus (7-25). In the 
early portion of this Lydiad we find an intro- 
ductory account telling of the time before 
Croesus. It is in the main a mythical attempt 
to connect Croesus with the past, and Lydia with 
the great peoples of the earth. It is hardly 
more than a meager genealogy, yet the names 
are suo^gestive. 

I^i)'st Dynasty. This begins with Lydus, son 
of Atys, who is the son of Manes (I. 94). Thus 
the Mythiis accounts for the designation of the 
country (Lydus), and connect it with Phrygia 
specially in the name Atys, which is frequent in 
the royal family of Phrygia. Manes is a deity 
of these two peoples ; or rather, it is the most 
universal designation of the First Ruler that 
exists in human speech. Old Teutonic Mannus, 
Egyptian Menes, Hindoo Manu, Greek 3Iinos, 
besides the Lydian and Phrygian forms, are well 
known. The word in general seems to refer to 
the divine beins: who first ruled over man and 
brought to him government and the social sys- 
tem. The My thus thus seeks to evoke the 
primordial starting-point of the existing order ; 
the Lydian rulers are carried back to the myth- 
ical fountain-head of all civil authority. The 



BOOK FIBST. 25 

English word man may thus be held to have a 
world-wide affinity, and also a world-deep sig- 
nificance. 

Second Dynasty. Here the Lydian rulers are 
mythically derived from Hercules (hence are 
called Heraclidae), the great Greek national 
hero, and also from Ninns (son of Bel, an As- 
syrian deity), who is the founder of Nineveh and 
the Assyrian Empire. A remarkable conjunction 
of names ; one can see in it a mythical attempt 
to unite Hellas and Asia in a common origin, 
through a kinship of their greatest Heroes and 
Gods. Herein Lydia is seen standing between 
Orient and Occident, bringing the two extremes 
together in her former rulers. Such, indeed, we 
shall find to be the actual situation and character 
of the Lydian nation. 

Very little history can be discovered in these 
genealogies, but we can see the great fact of the 
time putting on a mythical form, which has its 
significance as well as the historical form. The 
age of Herodotus is looking back at the afore- 
time and making the same real to itself not by 
the way of the critical Understanding, but through 
the Imagination. Each method the student is to 
sympathize with, and to take up into his own 
spirit. 

Some writers have held that the Hercules men- 
tioned in this genealogy is the Lydian Hercules 
and is whollv distinct from the Greek Hercules. 



26 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Such a view seeks to briu^ij into the Mythus a 
kind of formal consistency, whereas it is the 
nature of the Mythus to fluctuate and vary in its 
forms, when it has to express a new significance. 
The Mythus is truly plastic, formable, not the 
rigid historic fact. 

The last ruler belonorinof to the Heraclidae was 
Candaules, in whose time a new change of 
dynasty takes place. The historian seeks to give 
the ground of this change, and again he betakes 
himself to the Mythus, but in a fresh shape. 
Not a vague genealogy now ; the story enters in 
order to express the meaning of the revolution. 

The story of Candaules hints of the conflict 
between Greek and Barbarian in an important 
point of manners. The Greek loved the human 
body as the most perfect work in all creation ; 
he made it the abode of the God. Very neces- 
sary is this culture of and reverence for the body 
as the temple of the individual soul in life. The 
Oriental hid the body, was ashamed of it; in his 
eyes it belonged to the individual, who was little 
or nothing, a slave, and destined to vanish. 

Hence the difl'erence between Orient and Occi- 
dent develops at the start into a difl'erence as 
regards the body. The Greek exercised naked 
in the palestra, and contended naked in the 
Olympic games. Never again will a whole people 
probably have the same inner delight in the poetry 
of the body and its movement as the old Greeks 



BOOK FIBST. 27 

had. They tore off the Oriental rags, doubtless 
then more slattern than now, and revealed them- 
selves to themselves in their individual bodies, fit 
abode for the Gods. 

In all this we can see that rising consciousness 
of the worth of the individual, which takes on 
many forms at the present epoch. It is no 
wonder, therefore, that the Greeks seemed to 
the Oriental to be lacking in chastity. Yet not 
a mere tingling of lust was this love of the body, 
it was a phase of their progress, of the glorifica- 
tion of the individual. Even the face is often 
masked in the East. 

Now we can begin to understand the story of 
Candaules. He was clearly hellenizing, those 
Greek ideas were becoming strong in him. His 
friend was Gyges; that friend he wished to look 
on the most beautiful object in the world. So 
the little drama with plot and dialogue plays its 
first act. But then comes the counterstroke. 
The woman, the Oriental queen, holding to her 
custom, deems herself the most injured of mor- 
tals ; only the death of the husband can atone 
for the wrong. 

So Candaules loses his realm not simply for 
his love of beauty but for his love of imparting 
it to others. The woman resents the attempt to 
make her a Greek model. Who will refuse to 
say in these days that she has not her right? 
But the anecdote is truly characteristic; it shows 



28 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY, 

the two ways, Greek and Oriental, of consider- 
inor the human form ; moreover the source of 
Greek art, of its statues, is suggested in the 
story. 

The same question has its pertinence in these 
days. The Greek world of art has left us its 
legacy of nude statues; what is their effect on 
morals? Still further, the study of art de- 
mands the nude model; is such a thing to be 
permitted in our world which still holds to an 
Oriental religion? So the old conflict between 
Greece and the Orient, that conflict which de- 
posed Candaules, is not yet settled; to-day it is 
upon us, and often breaks out with fresh fury. 
And there is no doubt of the danger. But 
artists will tell you that the very function of art 
is through the senses to rise above the senses, 
to master the sensuous and make it the step to 
the eternal. 

Moreover, we may glance at the dramatic, 
indeed tragic element in the story of Candaules. 
Here is Guilt, the king violates the ethical con- 
sciousness of his people doubtless, but certainly 
of his wife, who is also queen. Two national, 
perchance world-historical ideas begin to show 
their conflict in this little tale ; note too that the 
penalty is to be brought home to the guilty man 
from the spot where the wrong took place. 
Still this punishment will call down retribution 
*' upon the fifth descendant of Gyges," namely 



BOOK FIBST. 



29 



Croesus. So the tragic deed of guilt perpet- 
uates itself in a way similar to what is seen in 
the House of Agamemnon. Herodotus was con- 
temporary with the great Athenian tragic poets, 
Aeschylus and Sophocles, and it may he often 
observed how he shares in the tragric conscious- 
ness of his age. He falls naturally into the 
dramatic form, and has a profound sense of the 
dramatic collision. To be sure this collision in 
the present case is merely suggested by a little 
tale, but this suggestion reaches down to the 
deepest fact of the age, the grand conflict be- 
tween Hellenism and Orientalism. 

Third Dynasty, This is called the Merm- 
nadae or children of Mermnas, which name is 
otherwise unknown. Herodotus mentions ^yq 
kings as belonging to this dynasty, whose names 
and reiorns chronoloorists have set down in the 
foUowinsT order: — 



Gyges 

Ardys 

Sadyattes 

Alyattes 

Croesus 



B. C. 716-678. 
'* 678-629. 
'* 629-617. 
** 617-560. 
** 560-546. 



There is much difi'erence of opinion among the 
learned about these dates (see Rawlinson's Essay 
on Lydian History, appended to the first volume 
of his translation of Herodotus). Into such dis- 
cussions we shall not enter; but it is worth 



30 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

while to Dote that our historian has no era (like 
the Christian era) by which to order historic 
time. Still it is plain that he is dimly groping 
for such an era, calling for it, we may say ; he 
has the idea of temporal succession, and is meas- 
uring it by dynasties, generations, and years. 

We have already sought to discover what lay 
in this last change of dynasty — a reaction 
against the hellenizing tendencies of the monarch, 
Candaules. His successor Gyges, however, still 
retains a religious connection with the Greeks, 
especially with the Delphic Oracle, to which he 
made presents. It is to be noticed that Apollo 
was probably the God of Asia Minor, at least 
more highly revered there than any other 
deity; he was worshiped in the Troad, as we 
learn from the Iliad, and sided with the Trojans 
and their Asiatic allies against the conti- 
nental Greeks in the Trojan War. But in 
the time of Herodotus, Apollo had moved west 
(though rocky Pytho is known to Homer), and 
acquired a transcendent influence in Hellas 
proper, which he did not possess in Homer. So 
all these Lydian Monarchs show a Greek religious 
affinity and come to their God across the Aegean. 
Gyges, however, is said to be the first of the 
Barbarians (with one exception) who dedicates 
offerings at Delphi. 

Now the grand historic conflict of these four 
Lydian kings before Croesus is with Greek cities 



BOOK FIB8T. 31 

of the coast, especially with Miletus, which had 
shown a wonderful development and had pro- 
duced great individuals such as Thales, Heca- 
taeus, Thrasybulus. It was a seafaring people, 
hence the land people, the Lydians, could not 
cut off their supplies. 

After a variety of historic events intermingled 
with anecdotes, another tale is woven into the 
narrative, a tale with a supernatural element, in 
contrast with the story of Candaules, which has 
no such element. Arion is a famous singer, who 
is saved by his power of song, which charms 
a dolphin to do his will. The leading points are 
three. 

First is the deed of wrong. Second is the 
supernatural conduct of the dolphin under the 
influence of Arion's music. Nature yields to 
the sweet sway of harmony — a theme elsewhere 
treated in Greek legend (Orpheus, Amphion). 
Third is the punishment of the guilty ; wrong, 
which is the grand discord of the ethical world, 
is undone. The whole is a genuine fairy-tale, 
with its miraculous intervention to save the in- 
nocent and worthy, and with its underlying 
substrate of faith in an ethical ord^r. The 
power of the tale is enhanced by making the 
victim of wrong a singer and harpist, or a pro- 
ducer of harmony, against whom the wicked here 
conspire. Thus they assail the outer harmony, 
which suggests the inner harmony ; indeed both 



32 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

kinds of harmony, the musical and the ethical, 
are assailed, and also vindicated. 

Such is the heart of the wonderful Tale of 
Arion and the Dolphin, which has been a prime 
favorite in all ages, having been wrought over 
into many literary forms, ballad, narrative, 
poem, prose-romance. Numerous attempts have 
been made to rationalize or allegorize the present 
tale, for instance, by making the dolphin a 
wooden one at the ship's prow, on which ship 
Arion escaped, or by making Arion a good 
swimmer, as good as a dolphin, or by making 
the whole into an allegory setting forth the 
power of music, etc. Still, the best way is to 
keep the tale as it is, being a genuine expression 
of a phase of human consciousness. But we 
should by all means inquire what is that human 
consciousness which seeks to express itself and 
its view of the Divine Order of the World in the 
form of a fairy-tale. Under the narrative we 
must reach down the ethical purport, which is the 
heart of it, and its ground of existence. This 
little tale of Arion and the Dolphin beautifully 
reflects a faith in a world-justice and a providen- 
tial ordering of things in this life. 

We also catch a glimpse of some of the diffi- 
culties in these Greek cities. Dissension within 
and without; no Ionic city helped the Milesians 
except Chios. The confederation was weak, the 
jealousy of the strong city shows itself; the 



BOOK FIRST. 93 

disease of Greece, of which she at last perished, 
makes its appearance. 

Then we see an internal change. A number of 
these cities, Miletus in particular, had fallen 
under the rule of a tyrant (or king). Thus an 
Oriental tendency had started, quite different 
from what we find in Homer. This tendency 
also passes into continental Greece, and most of 
its cities had their tyrants. While we behold the 
Orient and Hellas in a mutual opposition, we can 
also observe that there is even to this an 
opposite tendency, which brings both together. 

In looking back at these three dynasties we 
may observe a slow dawning of the historic con- 
sciousness, and with it a beginning of a World- 
History. Especially during the third dynasty 
(the Mermnadae) does the conflict become clear, 
the great conflict between Hellas and Asia. 
These Lydian monarchs wage war almost con- 
tinuously against the neighboring Greek cities, 
trying to subdue the rising influence. This small 
border war we shall see develop into the great 
Persian war, and reveal the deepest dualism in 
all History. 

With the peculiar intermingling of the myth- 
ical and historical streams, the Historian reaches 
the reign of Croesus, to whom the previous nar- 
rative has been leading up, as the grand central 
figure of the Lydiad. About one hundred years 
before the historian's own time, Croesus lived, 

S 



34 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY, 

and called forth the preliminary conflict, the 
first important historical conflict between East 
and West. 

III. Croesus. — We now enter upon the 
drama of Croesus (26-94) distinctively, which is 
portrayed in three stages, which may be called 
the Rise, Culmination, and Decline of the Lydian 
monarch. 

The first two stages are treated with greater 
brevity than the last; the impressive thing is the 
decline and fall of a mighty individual. The 
stress is here placed, therefore, upon the going 
down of Croesus, after great success. Drama, 
Epos, History are united in a new kind of 
composition; story, dialogue, oracle, riddle, 
omen, miracle, anecdote have their place in the 
variegated totality. 

1. The Rise of Croesus is given in a few 
paragraphs (26-28). He passes rapidly before 
us as the hero triumphant, victorious in the East 
and West, as far as his arms extend. He shows 
himself the ablest of the Lydian kings, and man- 
ifests a great character, round which the events 
of the time revolve. It becomes plain that he, 
like the Oriental rulers, is strongly possessed with 
the idea of conquest, of extending his country's 
limits; any boundary is an insult to his author- 
ity, and he proceeds at once to overcome it. 
An immediate annulment of the limits of nature 
is the Oriental spirit; that which is individual- 



BOOK FIRST. 35 

ized has no right to be. So Croesus shows traits 
of the Oriiental conqueror. 

At the same time he manifests strono; Greek 
aflSnities. No doubt he has a good deal of Greek 
culture ; it is clear that he participates in the 
intellectual movement of the Ionic cities of the 
coast. He keeps up his relation to the Delphic 
Oracle also, after testing it; this testing of the 
Oracle shows his mental tendency. '' Wise men 
came to him " (29), such as Solon, Thales, Bias. 
He conquers the Greek cities and makes them pay 
tribute ; he thinks of reducing the Islanders, but 
he had no navy and evidently could not trust the 
Greeks of the coast against Greeks of the islands. 
Then he carries his arms eastward, making the 
river Halys his boundary. Here he begins to 
impinge upon another rising Asiatic power. 

Thus Croesus is placed at the height of his 
glory. The history of these conquests is not 
told in much detail ; probably Herodotus did not 
know much about them. At any rate the im- 
pressive thing is not the rise but the fall, the 
descent from a great career. And this is what 
the historian now portrays with a decided dra- 
matic power. The tragic view of the Great 
Individual is presented, he is born to collide and 
to perish, the very Gods are supposed to be 
jealous of him, and to drive him against his limits. 

Really however he drives himself against 
them. The Greek cultivated individuality. 



86 THE FATHEB OF BIS TOUT. 

Hellas reared many of the mightiest men of all 
time. Yet they were tragic, they were too great 
for their city, for their nation, yea, too great 
for themselves. Hence after Homer's Epos 
rises Greek Tragedy, which has this conception 
at its foundation. Great is the individual, but 
the greater he is the more tragic. 

Now this fundamental consciousness Herodo- 
tus is going to apply to Croesus, and on a far 
vaster stage to Xerxes. So Croesus is to be seen 
in his struggle with the fate which his own great- 
ness and success have called up against him ; his 
own good fortune evokes the Furies. 

Moreover the historian has motived the guilt 
for which follows vengeance ; the dynasty of 
Croesus is tainted by the dethronement of Can- 
daules; the Oracle has declared that retribution 
will come after five generations. But the chief 
crime of Croesus and of his dynasty is that of 
enslaving the free Greek cities; he has wronged 
the Hellenic spirit, which just at this epoch hap- 
pens to be the bearer of civilization. 

2. Croesus is next to be brought before us in 
the height of his glory. The poet-historian intro- 
duces a dramatic scene of striking vividness, in 
which Solon and the Lydian king are the speak- 
ers. The content of this scene is of a reflective 
cast, ethico-didactic in spirit, and heralds the 
dialogues of Plato. A new literary form is thus 
introduced into the historical narrative ; the dra- 



BOOK FIRST. 37 

matic subject is not now mythical, but philo- 
sophic. The chief speaker is an Athenian, a free 
citizen of a free State ; moreover a lawgiver of 
freedom, a traveler and a philosopher. A re- 
markable combination : Solon has in the first 
place united liberty with law in his own city; 
then through travel he has transcended the nar- 
row limits of his own locality and become cos- 
mopolitan, universal; finally through philosophy 
he is able to formulate reflectively his view of 
the world. Croesus, in the acme of his power 
and wealth, is summoned by the Historian into 
the presence of such a man, and is made to give 
an account of himself. 

It is highly probable that the whole interview 
is fictitious; there are chronological diflSculties 
in the way. Still our Historian does not disdain 
the imaginative form to set forth historic truth. 
And the historic truth here is that two kinds 
of consciousness, two stages of human develop- 
ment are placed alongside of each other and 
contrasted, in the persons of their highest repre- 
sentatives, Solon and Croesus, the free citizen 
and the absolute monarch. Again we behold 
a new image of the grand theme, Orient and 
Occident. 

The question takes the form of who is the 
happiest man? Or more directly stated accord- 
ing to the point under discussion. What kind of 
a life is most worth living? We are to look to 



3B THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

the total life, to the very end thereof, in order to 
find out. The philosopher answers in substance : 
'* Not thou, O King Croesus, with all thy wealth, 
but Tellus the Athenian who was a good citizen 
of a good State, father of good sons, and died a 
glorious death for his country." Very strongly 
does this reply set up the free Athenian citizen 
as the ideal man, having his institutional life in 
Family and State and dying at last for his 
country. 

Then comes the second instance ; again 
Croesus is not chosen, but Cleobis and Biton, 
two Argive youths, who gave a remarkable ex- 
ample of filial and religious devotion, and at 
once were taken to the Gods, *' who thus showed 
that it is better to die than to live." Once more 
the man of humble station fulfilling some ethical 
function and dying therein is held up to Croesus 
as the pattern of happiness, or of right life and 
death. The Athenian case was domestic and 
political, the Argive case was domestic and 
religious, both celebrate what may be called the 
ethical as the true source of happiness, in con- 
trast with the wealth and power of Croesus. 

So much for these instances in which we see 
the humble condition of the free Greek glorified, 
his ethical devotion to family and country and 
god, and his dying not in a deedless quiet but in 
fulfillment of some worthy action. A philo- 
sophic view of the life and death of the ordinary 



BOOK FIBST. 39 

individual is thus held up before the Oriental 
despot. Of course the latter could not see the 
subject in that light. 

Then Herodotus introduces his peculiar notion 
about the Gods : they are jealous, and are level- 
ers of the high and mighty. What does he 
mean? Does he intend to put an ill-disposed 
Providence at the head of the Divine Order? 
So it seems. Now this view springs from two 
sources. Herodotus saw the most powerful 
rulers of the Orient humbled — Xerxes, and this 
Croesus, not to speak of other lesser instances. 
Then he saw the fate of the great individuals of 
the Greek States, Pausanias and Themistocles, 
for example. The deity Nemesis levels all. 

This is, then, a statement of the tragic view 
of the individual, which belongs to the time, and 
indeed of the tragic view of the Greek World. 
The grand mediation of Man with the Divine 
and also with himself is the work of Christendom, 
which is therefore not tragic. But Heathendom 
is tragic in its outcome, and its best spirits know 
it, and portray it. Hence the Greek Tragedians. 
Still, at the start, the Homeric epical conscious- 
ness is not tragic, since both the heroes (Achilles 
and Ulysses) after their wrath and error, are 
restored, do not perish, at least not in the poems, 
though Achilles knows he has to die young. 
But as the Greek consciousness developed, put- 
ting more and more stress upon the individual, 



40 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

it felt the tragic counter-stoke, felt that great- 
ness turned loose the Furies of Death. 

Thus Solon bids Croesus wait for the end, be- 
fore he can be pronounced happy. *' Wealth 
does not make happy.'' Herein the humblest 
individual may be superior to a king, is indeed 
likely to be. In such fashion does Solon assert 
his Greek principle of individuality, and give a 
democratic Athenian tinge to his talk. Law- 
giver too, he is; for all have come under the 
law in equality, no absolute monarch can con- 
trol law, specially the law of Nemesis — not 
Croesus, not Cyrus. 

Solon has asserted to the Oriental monarch the 
universal point of view, and subsumed the mon- 
arch under it, philosopher that he is ; has made the 
monarch submit to law, lawgiver that he is. Did 
he not leave Athens for ten years that he might 
not repeal his laws, and that the Athenians might 
have to submit to them? A great discipline for 
that commonwealth, and for him, too; we behold 
now arising the law-giving consciousness, which, 
however, reaches its bloom in the Roman spirit, 
when the whole world, and not merely one 
city, is brought under law. Zaleucus, Charondas, 
Lycurgus, Solon, are all individual precursors 
of Rome. 

Such was the warning given to Croesus, who 
did not, could not, take it with his consciousness. 
Solon says to the proud monarch: '* I shall level 



BOOK FIRST. 41 

thee with rest of mortals, I shall be thy Nemesis ; 
I shall read to thee the law of the Divine Order, 
under which thou, too, must come ; I shall teach 
thee a lesson of philosophy, which is of universal 
application, making no exception even in favor of 
kings." Before the tribunal of the Idea the 
philosopher humbles Croesus, placing him below 
the simple Athenian citizen Tellus, What next? 
This Idea is to begin its realization, in which fact 
the preceding scene is to connect with what 
follows, 

3. The downward movement of Croesus is the 
last and fullest act of the Croesus drama (34-91). 
The interview with Solon shows theLydian mon- 
arch at high tide of external prosperity ; it also 
hints the internal spirit, the pride (hi/brts) of 
the man, which is the preparation for the turn in 
his affairs. A look into the soul of Croesus is 
given, by which we see the motive for his decline 
and fall. 

There is no doubt that the Historian portrays 
the lot of Croesus with sympathy. Herodotus 
was born not very far from the boundaries of 
Lydia, and in his youth he must have heard 
many traditions of the famous Lydian ruler, 
whose conqueror was Persia, the great enemy of 
Greece. But it is certain that our Historian 
shows still greater sympathy with the doctrine of 
Solon, who is here the real Oracle of Croesus, 
having given the true response to the proud mon- 



42 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

arch, ill the way of warning. Athenian wisdom 
is unconsciously placed above the Delphic Oracle. 

So we mark the turning-point: *' a grand 
indignation (nemesis) from God" fell upon 
Croesus, of which the cause, according to the con- 
jecture of the historian, was *' his deeming him- 
self the happiest of all men." Of this decline 
then may be noted five distinct stages: (1) the 
domestic tragedy in which the king will lose his 
son and heir; (2) the consultation of the 
Delphic Oracle, whereby Croesus seeks to unite 
himself with the religious feeling of Greece ; (3) 
attempted alliances with Athens and Sparta, in 
which Croesus seeks to unite himself with Greece 
politically against Persia; (4) struggle with 
Cyrus, and defeat; (5) the denouement, in 
which Croesus loses his kingdom, but is per- 
sonallv saved. 

These five stages we shall now set forth singly, 
as they unroll in all their diversity of color, 
style, thought. Each of these stages may be 
said to have its own literary form and quality — 
which fact is one of the main points to be 
discerned. 

(1). The domestic tragedy sweeping in upon 
Croesus, which is here narrated (34-45), strikes 
him a blow in the tenderest spot; his son is 
slain, his only son, except one who is deaf and 
dumb — a calamity to his family and to his 
state. 



BOOK FIB ST. 43 

The king has a dream foretelling the death of 
his son, which dream he regards as a divine 
warning, and which he tries to circumvent, to no 
purpose, however. Croesus is in the leading 
strings of Fate, and every act of avoidance 
becomes simply an act of furtherance. 

The tale is a tragedy somewhat after the pat- 
ern of the Athenian dramatists. Particularly 
Oedipus is suggested, whose lines of life are laid 
down for him in advance, and he cannot escape. 
The fateful Oracle hangs over him : unwittingly 
he will slay his own father and marry his own 
mother. So Croesus brings about the very 
means for the fulfillment of his dream (which is 
oracular), nay we shall see him in the political 
arena movinoj forward to his own undoing^. 
Herein Herodotus, as on other occasions, shows 
himself sharinsf in the trasric consciousness which 
produced the great Athenian tragic poets ; indeed 
he was the friend of Sophocles and had doubtless 
seen or read the latter's Oedipus Rex, 

The most interesting of the characters of this 
present drama is Adrastus,the fateful man, who, 
innocent of intentions, does the most terrible 
deeds. He slays his brother unwittingly; he 
has to flee from home under a curse, comes to 
Croesus, who purifies and receives him back into 
the social order. A curious conception, yet by 
no means unnatural ; Adrastus takes Fate with 
him wherever he goes ; perhaps because he 



44 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

broods over it, he cannot get rid of the fixed 
idea about it, and thus accomplishes his own 
presentiments. Typical is such a person for 
Croesus now; Adrastus, *' the doomed," enters 
the Lydian Court ; indeed we may consider 
Adrastus as a phase of Croesus himself. For 
Croesus deems himself the happiest of mortals, 
above the stroke of destiny ; just behold, O 
Croesus, this man, the victim of the Gods; are 
you exempt? You shall soon see. We are 
touched by the humanity and kindness of 
Croesus, who purifies the man of misfortune and 
even forgives his terrible deed. Still the blow 
descends; Dot exempt from Fate is the king, 
indeed he is exposed to it specially by his exalted 
position. 

Thus the philosoper with his abstract state- 
ment of a view of the world goes in advance, and 
the illustration is enforced in a vivid dramatic 
scene. Nemesis is at work; does Croesus recog- 
nize it? 

Of course the modern world cannot accept this 
Herodotean idea of nemesis, fate, and divine 
envy. Already in the olden time Plato opposed 
strongly the doctrine of envy. We must believe 
that man makes his own fate, if he is overmas- 
tered by it; the inner fortress, the mind, in its 
freedom, must be made proof against fate. Man 
cannot wholly avoid accident and so can be 
reached externally by the external; but this 



BOOK FIBST. 45 

cannot overcome him interntilly unless he lets it. 
Still we must throw ourselves back sympatheti- 
cally into the time of the old Historian and 
appreciate his consciousness. 

(2) The dealings of Croesus svith the Delphic 
Oracle come next in order (46-56). We have 
already seen in the case of his son, that Croesus 
was accessible to a supernatural influence; the 
dream was a kind of Oracle whose f ulfiUment may 
have influenced him to this new step of consulting 
the Oracles. But first he will test their truth; 
then, when he has discovered the right one^ he 
will seek to gain it. In fact, this entire section 
may well be considered his attempt to conciliate 
the Greek relisfious spirit through its leadino^ 
Oracle. Then a political object (possibly he 
was not wholly conscious of it himself) under- 
lies these religious offerings of Croesus to the 
Greek God. For some reason he felt the neces- 
sity of sacrificing quite a portion of his treasures, 
which our Historian saw still at Delphi. From 
this dazzling account (the Greeks were always 
and still are relatively poor) has come down the 
saying: '* As rich as Croesus." 

Thus the Lydian monarch reaches out toward 
the religious heart of Hellas. He seeks to con- 
ciliate it, to win it, perchance to purchase it in- 
directly. What is the meaning of his conduct? 

The time has come when Croesus has to take 
sides, he cannot be Oriental and Hellenic too. 



46 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

As it is, he is a middle man, he is in Asia, yel 
in contact with Greece, an Oriental despot with a 
good deal of the Greek spirit in him. Tht; 
Persian Empire is rising, a new hero appears in 
the East, Cyrus ; with him Croesus has to 
reckon. That Empire means the total absorption 
of Western Asia and Croesus knows it, he i)re- 
pares to dispute the new power. 

For this purpose he seeks alliances with 
Greece. To be sure, the Greeks must regard 
him with suspicion, for he " has enslaved their 
brothers in Asia." But first he will put himself 
in harmony with the Greek religion which at that 
time found utterance in the Oracle, specially the 
Delphic Oracle. This was a wise move on the 
part of Croesus. For the Greek consciousness 
had its expression in these Oracles, there was 
indeed no other expression for the total Hellenic 
race. Politically the Greeks were divided into 
hundreds of conflicting communities, scattered 
over a wide stretch of territory from Sicily and 
Italy in the West to the Euxine in the North and 
Africa in the South. The Delphic Oracle was 
their voice, their unity, their center, and it strove 
to preserve and keep alive the common Greek 
brotherhood, which was felt by all, and to a 
degree obeyed by all, when voiced by the com- 
mand of the Oracle. 

Such was its chief sphere, a true one, though 
it was often consulted on matters which lay out- 



BOOK FIBST. 47 

side of its horizon, and so became ambiguous. 
But why this form of expression? The oracular 
consciousness feels the totality immediately, has 
it not in the form of reason, but of feeling, or 
perchance of inner vision. What is universal it 
feels in the particular event and speaks it forth ; 
no ground it has but its own self — a kind of 
intuition of the Greek national spirit. Hence 
the rise and the authority of the oracular con- 
sciousness. Herodotus shares in it, though it 
was departing in his day before the coming phi- 
losophic culture. Yet even Socrates with his 
demon has not wholly lost it. 

Our Historian, true to the spirit of his time, 
and specially to the time of the Persian War, 
weaves this oracular thread through his history; 
it would indeed be imperfect without the same. 
He is in the transition from the oracular to the 
historical ; his follower in history, Thucydides, 
has quite lost this oracular element from his 
consciousness. 

Croesus also has this oracular spirit, though 
not without some questioning; he has no longer 
implicit faith. He would test the Oracles be- 
forehand, to see if they did really foreknow — 
not only the Grecian, but also the Libyan, that 
of Ammon. He finds out the truth of the 
Delphic Oracle by a cunning stratagem. Now 
this is the difficulty ; we with our view of the 
matter question the truth of the particular 



48 THE FATHER OF HISTORY, 

case, but there can be no question of the general 
reason for the choice. The Delphic Oracle, ex- 
pressing the united spirit of Hellas, was for him 
the true Oracle which he must consult. That 
fact his own insight would tell him, yet he re- 
quired also the special confirmation and got it 
somehow. Croesus is skeptic enough to make 
trial, though he has faith likewise. Yet he can 
also proceed on purely rational grounds to deter- 
mine his conduct. There is in all war a vast 
field for chance ; especially so was it in the olden 
time. He cannot wholly ignore the indetermi- 
nate, and so there is room for the Oracle outside 
of what is balculable. 

Looking at it from our point of view, we see 
that Croesus could not well have done otherwise. 
Is he willing to be absorbed into the new Ori- 
ental Empire? No. Then he must appeal to the 
Greek spiritual principle and find its Oracle. 
For the Greek specially is the foe of Asiatic 
absorption, the upholder of individuality. 

Now come his presents to the Oracle, which 
have made his name famous for all time, and 
proverbial. He seeks to conciliate the Oracle, 
and win its voice to his side; or, better, to con- 
ciliate the Greek consciousness, which he knows 
he has deeply offended by his subjugation of the 
Greek cities along the coast of Asia Minor. 
Such is probably the meaning of these presents, 
an act of restitution ; the most of his tribute 



BOOK FIRST. 49 

from his Greek conquests he takes and devotes 
to the Greek God. An atonement one may read 
in this, in the presence of all Greece. 

What will the Oracle say? Thrice it answers. 
First it tells what King Croesus is doing at that 
moment, proclaiming its vision over space; sec- 
ondly, it tells him *' he would destroy a mighty 
empire;" the third is,*' When a mule shall be king 
of the Medes," then comes danger to the Lydian. 
These last two oracles depend on ambiguities, 
really they lay outside the scope and the mean- 
ing of the Greek Oracle, which has to help itself 
out with double meanings. For the real question 
which comes home to the Oracle, representing 
Hellenic consciousness, is this ; Is Croesus the 
true bearer of the Greek world and its spirit 
against Persia and the Orient? To such a ques- 
tion there can be but one answer, No ! The 
Lydian king is an Oriental despot, in spite of his 
hellenizing tendencies ; he has subjected Greek 
cities to his absolute rule. So Delphi, the voice 
of Hellas, avoids the issue, nay, is willing to eg^ 
Croesus on into a fight with Persia, turning one 
Oriental against another. 

Really, then, the attempt of Croesus to gain, 
or perchance to buy, the Oracle is a failure. 
How could it be otherwise? He cannot be ac- 
cepted by the Greeks as their head, their repre- 
sentative, nor can he be taken by the Oriental 
peoples of Central Asia as their leader. He falls 

4 



50 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

between tbe opposites ; the spirit of the age, 
after foreshadowing its great conflict in him with 
his double tendency, will eliminate him. 

(3) The political design of Croesus now starts 
to make itself manifest (56-70). *' He began to 
inquire carefully who were the most powerful of 
the Greeks, whom he might gain over as allies." 
Accordingly we have in this part a short ethnic 
dissertation (56-58) on the origin and relation- 
ship of the Greek tribes. Not plain is the pass- 
age (the manuscripts are said to be defective 
here), and it has given rise to a great diversity 
of opinion. The Historian, after noticing the 
dual division of the Greek stock into Doric and 
Ionic (or Hellenic and Pelasgic) seems to derive 
both primordially from the Pelasgic race. Thus 
far back in the prehistoric time there was a kind 
of rude Greek unity, which now, however, is 
split up into many independent commonwealths, 
each asserting its own individual right of exist- 
ence. Still there remains the religious unity of 
the Greek consciousness, centering more in 
Delphi at the present time than in any other 
place. 

After Croesus had, as he supposed, conciliated 
the religious feeling, the feeling of brotherhood 
among the Greeks, he turns to the separate 
states, and takes up the political side of his cause. 
For the Greeks were politically divided into 
small states in spite of their common feeling ; 



BOOK FIB ST. 51 

these were hostile to one another often, and 
hence they had to be approached separately. 
How different in Asia ! There the political unity 
swallows all, the one state, the one man, the 
monarch. Very soon Croesus finds the Greek 
states reduced to two, Athens and Sparta — 
Ionic and Doric. 

Undoubtedly Herodotus has before himself 
the intense breach just preceding the Pelopon- 
nesiaii War, between Athens and Sparta, which 
breach he throws back to the time of Croesus, 
when the dualism had already started doubtless, 
but was not so pronounced. Accordingly we 
have the history of Athens and Sparta in the 
time of Croesus and before interwoven in the 
narrative. 

(a) Athens in the time of Croesus had not 
unfolded into her greatness, but was in an 
internal struggle with her tyrants. This inner 
conflict was no doubt the means of her develop- 
ment, she had to feel the tyrannical hand before 
acquiring her strong spirit of freedom. 

Pisistratus obtains the tyranny thrice, expelled 
but returning each time: first, through craft he 
gets the citizens to give a body-guard and then 
seizes the Acropolis; second, he makes the 
Athenians believe that the Goddess Minerva 
orders his restoration; third, he returns by 
violence and stays. 

In this account we see the Athenians held in 



52 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

submission, and the ruler using his chief strength 
to keep clown the citizens. It is clear that 
Croesus could find but little help in them ; though 
the government corresponded with his own, being 
despotic, it was not by the will of the people. 
Accordingly he turns to Sparta. 

(?>) He finds that the Lacedemonians had 
extricated themselves out of great diflSculties, 
and that they were internally at peace — which 
was not the case at Athens. Frotn having '* the 
worst laws " they had come to have the best. 
This was done through their great man, the law- 
giver Lycurgus, who was hailed by the Delphic 
Oracle as a God. 

Hereupon we have a discussion of the well- 
worn theme, Spartan institutions, which have 
brought their people to the highest state of pros- 
perity and strength. Then follows an attempt 
at conquering the Tegeans, which at first failed. 
Here we should notice the share of the Delphic 
Oracle in these matters. *' Thou askest for 
Arcadia, I cannot grant it thee," but a part is 
given. Yet even this part has to be won by 
renewed effort, and the Oracle shows its double 
side. In order to succeed, Sparta must bring 
back the bones of Orestes (a sacred relic of 
Sparta) ; their place was at last discovered in a 
smithy. Here we have a fantastic tale, concern- 
ing the conquest of Tegea. When the Spartans 
'got these bones, they were always victorious. 



BOOK FIRST. 53 

Indeed this conquest of Tegea by the Spartans 
is one of the wildest thinsfs in the whole work. 
They are defeated till they get the relics of a 
hero; compare the fact that churches were often 
built around the relics of a saint. Good laws 
come first (Lycurgus), then there must be the 
presence of the hero (Orestes). In such fashion 
the history of Athens and of Sparta is inter- 
spersed with marvelous tales to bring it down to 
the present. The historic fact is bad tyranny in 
the one state and good laws in the other ; how 
did this fact come to be? Here the marvelous 
plays in, to account for the reality. 

It is manifest from the present account that 
the relation of Sparta to the Delphic Oracle is 
much closer than that of Athens. In this bit of 
Spartan history no less than four oracular utter- 
ances are given from Delphi, while Athens has 
none, though the latter has its supernatural side 
represented in the saying of a prophet, and in 
allusions to Minerva. Such is the continental 
Greek thread, which is now first woven into the 
present history, and which will continue to 
increase in importance to the end. 

(4) We are next carried into the conflict of 
Croesus with the East, which is represented in the 
person of Cyrus (71-76). We now penetrate 
the purpose of the Greek alliance, and of con- 
ciliatinoj the Greek God. Croesus has seen the 
struggle coming on, and has prepared himself. 



54 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

But just here he receives a warnincr from a 
Lyclian wise man (not a Greek), advising him 
not to go to war with the Persian. Such is the 
manner of the Historian ; the warning of the 
wise man, before the fatal enterprise, is to be 
duly given ; Solon has already done so, and there 
will be many other instances hereafter. But this 
Lydian adviser reflects the Oriental view, and 
seeks to keep the two Asiatic monarchs in 
harmony. 

Croesus succeeds iu entering into an alliance 
with the Lacedemonians. But it is clear that he 
had been active in other directions. He had 
made a treaty of alliance with the King of Egypt 
and with the Babylonian King. The growing 
power of Cyrus had already roused the Oriental 
world. Croesus has constituted himself the cen- 
ter of opposition to Persia. 

There had been an old conflict between the 
Lydian and Median kingdoms, which had been 
settled by the marriage of Astyages with the 
sister of Croesus. But this brother-in-law had 
been conquered by Cyrus, the new hero. Thus 
a strugSfle arose between Western and Central 
Asia, or Asia Minor and Middle Asia, the ques- 
tion being who shall possess the grand highway 
to the West and the Western World. 

The battle between Croesus and Cyrus was. 
fought at Pteria, in Cappadocia — result un- 
decided. But Croesus concludes to return to 



BOOK FIBST. 65 

Lydia and Cyrus follows. Here is shown the 
difference between the two men — one retires and 
the other pursues. Sardes is besieged, again 
Croesus summons his allies. But his enemy is 
in advance ; allies so far away cannot help. The 
Lacedemonians do not come, having a war of their 
own, which, as here recounted, has a legendary 
touch like that of the Horatii and Curiatii. But 
the outcome is that Sardes is captured and 
Croesus is a prisoner. None of his allies ap- 
peared, Cyrus was too rapid for them. 

In the present passage occurs the famous state- 
ment in which Thales, the Milesian philosopher, 
is said to have predicted an eclipse of the sun 
to the lonians. It was the appearance of the 
eclipse which stopped the Orientals from a battle 
and caused them to make peace. The statement 
has roused wonder tbrousfh all succeedinof asfes, 
and has been variously regarded. Was it merely 
a happy guess or was it based on scientific data? 
If the latter, Thales anticipated the modern 
science of astronomy in some of its most intri- 
cate calculations. Hardly any miracle recorded 
by Herodotus equals this. According to the 
reckoning of recent astronomers there were two 
solar eclipses in the reign of Alyattes, 610 B. 
C. and 584 B. C. (Sieiuy Com. adloc); some 
take one and some the other, for the eclipse 
spoken of by Herodotus. At any rate we 
should note that science has started in that town 



56 THE FATHER OF HI8T0BY. 

of Miletus and its greatest man is the philoso- 
pher. To the same Thales is ascribed an engi- 
neering feat in the next chapter (75). With 
him begins also the distinctive movement of 
Greek philosophy, 

(5) The dramatic outcome of Croesus con- 
nects him again with Solon, the philosopher. 
The king is a prisoner and ascends the funeral 
pile; thrice he repeats the name, Solon. He 
now realizes that happiness must wait till the 
end; the death of Tellus, the free Greek citizen 
of the free state, is far to be preferred to his 
own now approaching. '* Listen, I name a man 
whose discourses all tyrants should hear." Still 
further does the Lydian contrast the philosopher 
with the king. What Solon had said, would 
apply also to Cyrus ; the latter is touched with 
the feeling of a common humanity, ** being but 
a man ; " he commands the flames to be extin- 
guished. This is not effected till Apollo comes 
and puts out the fire at the prayer for rain made 
by Croesus. 

Yet it was this Apollo, '*the God of the 
Greeks," who incited Croesus to make war 
against Cyrus. The Oracle had its share in 
encouraging Croesus to the contest; still the 
latter had his own reasons for resisting the new 
power rising in Central Asia. But now Croesus 
blames the God of the Greeks as the cause of 
the whole trouble. Does he see that he has 



BOOK FIB ST. 57 

been made an instrument in the great struggle 
between Greece and Asia? The preliminary 
skirmish it is ; the powers have used him and he 
has gone down, for which he finds fault with the 
Greek God. 

But what will the God say in defense? This 
also is to be told. Croesus sends his golden 
fetters to Delphi, and reproaches the deity. 
Thus do you deceive your friends ! The claim of 
Croesus is that the Greek spirit or the Greek 
God did not support him, but deceived him. 
Observe the several phases of the answer. (1) 
*' The Gods cannot avoid the decrees of Fate ; " 
so the God asserts that there is some jDower above 
the God. *' I am not to blame," the God claims 
to have delayed the fall of Sardes three years; 
so the God can put off, though not change Fate. 
(2) The ground of this decree of Fate was the 
ancestral wrong in the change of dynasty, and 
the time for retribution had come. (3) Apollo 
saved the life of Croesus from the flames, send- 
ing the rainfall. (4) As to the two oracles, 
Croesus misunderstood both, and took his own 
interpretation instead of asking the God. The 
destruction of the great kingdom meant his own 
kingdom, not the Persian, and the mule on the 
throne was Cyrus. But the further problem, 
why the God responds in such riddling answers, 
was not explained. 

Thus the historian makes the Oracle defend 



58 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

itself. Still it deceived Croesus, or rather he 
deceived himself ; he was not to be the bearer of 
Greek or of Oriental civilization. The World's 
History had the matter in hand, the victory of 
Croesus would have been no settlement of the 
great issue, rather a retardation. 

Retrospect, We have now before us the 
Lydiad, with which Herodotus begins his account 
of the historic movement of his age. Moreover 
the conflict here portrayed is the conflict which 
gave birth to the historic consciousness of the 
race ; the struggle which winds through and de- 
termines History truly begins here in a conscious 
way and starts to uttering itself. The war be- 
tween the free Greek cities of the coast, whose 
principle was autonomy, and the Lydian mon- 
arch, whose principle was absolutism, produced 
the crisis, though Time was ready to bear the 
child which is henceforth to register Time's 
greatest doings. 

Still we must recollect, that History iu this 
epoch is but an infant, and has yet to grow 
through all duration. In the Orient hitherto 
History was not dead but unborn, struggling 
often in the throes of parturition — a thing of 
potentiality, not yet of reality. The shock 
which produced the consciousness of History in 
the movement of the race is recorded in this 
Lydiad before us by the *' Father of History ; " 
hence its abiding interest for the historical stu- 



BOOK FIBST. 59 

dent. We may summarize some of its leading 
points. 

1. Those Greek cities of the coast had become 
conscious of freedom, and were fighting for it 
consciously, in opposition to the Oriental ten- 
dency. In the Trojan War the Greeks had es- 
sentially the same principle as these Greek cities 
now have, but at that time they were not con- 
scious of it, and so could produce no History of 
it, the work of self-conscious Reason, but a 
great Poem, the work of instinctive Imagination. 

2. The conception of freedom in these early 
Greek cities was very vague and ill-defined, and 
was much abused. Hardly could it be other- 
wise; the World's History is really a moving 
into a more and more complete definition of 
freedom. Still the individual has now become 
aware of himself as free, that is, as a limit- 
transcending spirit, who is not to have his 
bounds put upon him from the outside but who 
is to determine himself from within, whose 
destiny it is to be autonomous. Thus that 
ancient Greek man has beo^un to be a true indi- 
vidual, of human dignity ; it is also clear that he 
will fight for his principle and thereby do a deed 
worthy of being recorded, as an example for all 
men for all time. So History must come forth 
now. 

3. That same History must preserve the actions 
of the enemy who conflicts with this principle of 



60 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

freedom ; hence the doings of the despot will 
also be recorded. Croesus owes his fame to 
those whom he sought to subdue, and Oriental 
peoples and conquerors of antiquity have become 
historical chiefly through Greek historians and 
the Greek historical spirit. 

4. History is born in the Lydiad, but it is 
still a child, and its child-like character must be 
duly appreciated, and, we think, lovingly sym- 
pathized with. It still delights in the Marvelous 
Tale, and will weave the same into the historic 
fact ; it cannot wholly eschew the Mythus and 
the supernatural ordering of the actual world ; it 
must have the sign, the omen, above all the 
oracle. Thus our Historian gives a complete 
picture of the consciousness of his age, in all its 
variegated hues; such, indeed, is his great value, 
if he were more strictly historical, he would be 
less true. 

5. The artistic construction of the Lydiad is 
especially worthy of study, combining, as it does, 
the forward movement of History with the return- 
ing movement of the drama or Epos. The 
Lydiad is cyclical, a poetic whole, rounded off 
with the return of the deed to the doer; yet it is 
also progressive, giving the events in their suc- 
cessive order in Time. Herein lies the art of the 
Historian ; he is not merely the chronicler, but 
also the poet; he will not be externally tied to 
Time and its occurrences, but he must likewise 



BOOK FIRST. 61 

give the inner movement which takes place in 
Time. Specially he must unfold the cycle of the 
central individual character, such as Croesus. 

6. The Lydiad in many regards can be seen to 
be a movement out of the Iliad, out of the Epos 
into History. There is a distinct change from the 
Homeric Pantheon, the world of the Gods, as it 
is seen in the great poet ; the deities have become 
more abstract, almost impersonal at times ; Zeus 
and his Olympian family are succeeded by Fate 
and by Nemesis ; indeed, we often catch a mono- 
theistic tinge in the expression ** the God," em- 
ployed instead of the plural. Still we observe 
the supremacy of Apollo through his Oracle, and 
certainly a strong faith in the Divine Order, 
which the Historian is continually insisting upon, 
and which he deems that History specially 
reveals. But in general it is manifest that ab- 
stract universal principles are supplanting the 
personal interference of the Gods in the affairs 
of men — which fact again shows a movement 
out of the imas^inative into the historical con- 
sciousness. 

7. Of the two contestants in the Lydiad, the 
Asiatic Greeks and the Lydians, neither can be 
regarded as the adequate representative of the 
<jrand world-historical conflict which is cominsf 
on, and which is the theme of this History. 
Though they reveal the presence of this conflict, 
and play the overture in the Lydiad, they will 



62 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

both be absorbed in the mightier contending 
forces which are now arising. The Asiatic Greek 
was too much of an Asiatic to represent the 
European, and so he soon falls under the Lydian; 
but the Lydian is himself too much of a Greek 
to represent the Asiatic in his struggle with 
Europe. Croesus hence vanishes from the stage 
of the World's History, and his place is taken 
by a new character whose career is next to be 
set forth in historico-dramatic fashion. 



III. PERSIAD. 

Thus we shall designate the third general part 
of the present Book (95-216). But the Persiad 
extends beyond the present Book which hardly 
gives more than the rise of the Persian Empire. 
Hence the theme which now starts will embrace 
the Second, Third and Fourth Books, and be 
continued as one of the two leading threads in 
the later Books. The Persiad describes the con- 
solidation of all Western Asia under the power 
of Persia, preparatory to the struggle with 
Greece, in which the Orient is defeated. The 
whole, therefore, shows the rise, culmination and 
defeat of the Persian, wherein we see that the 
Lydiad is in small what the total Persiad is in 
large. The triple movement, growth, bloom, 
decay, is fundamental in Herodotus, illustrating 
his view of Nemesis and Fate. Still the fall of 
one nation is the ground for the rise of another, 
so that the world's progress continues, does not 
die with the death of one particular nation, but 
rather eets a fresh life. 

(63J 



& 



64 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

Cyrus. — It is, however, anew hero, Cyrus, who 
is the central figure of the remaining portion of 
the present Book. Hence there is brought before 
us a Cyrus drama, in this Persiad, which is the 
new counterpart of and contrast to the preceding 
Croesus drama of the~ Lydiad. Here, too, is 
suggested a dramatic movement, which takes up 
the historical portions and organizes them into a 
poetic whole. We shall behold the rise, culmi- 
nation and death of Cyrus, in whose tragic out- 
come Croesus will again appear by way of con- 
trast. Still this calamity will not stop the work 
of Cyrus, whose principle we see to be the con- 
quest and unification of the Orient under Persia. 
Accordingly we shall treat the rest of the present 
Book under the three heads just designated. 

I. Bise of Cyrus, The historian states at the 
start the double nature of his theme (95): «« My 
History proceeds next to inquire who this Cyrus 
was, and in what way the Persians got to be 
rulers of Asia." The rest of the Book is essen- 
tially an answer to the first question. But the 
rise of Cyrus must be given for the beginning 
of the account, which account embraces two 
nations — Media and Persia, inasmuch as the 
origin of Cyrus is connected with both. 

The conflict with Greece always looms up in 
the background, still the stress of the work is to 
tell of Persia, and her acquisition of Asiatic 
domain. She will have a series of monarchs. 



BOOR FIRST, 65 

"whose reigns will be given in succession. Lydia 
furnishes the example and the prelude with its 
list of kings. In fact, for Herodotus this seems 
to be the form of the Orient: a line of kings in 
chronological order. Very striking is the con- 
trast to the movement of the Greek world with 
its many cities and struggles. The one is indi- 
vidualized, atomized ; the other is gathered 
round a strong political center. The two pro- 
cesses are presented as going on alongside of each 
other, the separative and the unitary; each, too, 
has its own inner struggle, which, to a degree, 
reflects the outer struggle. That is, the Greek 
has his tendency toward unity, which, in the city, 
is the despot ; but in religion it is the Oracle. 
Still no attempt is here made to be despot of all 
Greece ; only an Oriental sought that. At the 
same time the Orientals had their movement 
toward freedom, separation, yet it could not be 
made valid. Each side thus has the total process 
in itself, yet with the stress in opposite directions. 
The first of these Persian kings is Cyrus, hero 
and founder of his dynasty. Now he has to be 
accounted for in the antecedent time ; so we have 
a reaching back to a line of kings of Media, four 
of them. The historic movement is similar to that 
of Lydia, which ends in Croesus; also it is simi- 
lar to the Persian regal movement, which reaches 
to Xerxes. Here the idea of Time in successive 
dynasties and monarchies enters. Yet the myth- 

5 



G6 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

ical plays in and colors the historical material 
everywhere. 

1. Media, The Assyrians had conquered the 
Medes and ruled over them for 520 years, when 
the Medes Revolted and ** became free," in which 
expression lies a suggestion of the Greek con- 
sciousness. So we have a condition of the Medes 
like the Greeks, divided into a number of inde- 
pendent cities and communities, when Deioces 
makes his appearance and reduces them under a 
despotic government. This process is given in 
some detail by Herodotus, since it was an inter- 
esting matter to all Greeks. 

The trouble was that the Medes had freedom, 
but not justice ; in these communities we do not 
wonder at hearing that lawlessness prevailed ; so 
it was in the Hellenic cities also. Now Deioces, 
being elected judge in his own village, '* ap- 
plied himself with great zeal to the exercise of 
Justice," so that he became famous among 
other villages. He, '* keeping the sovereign 
power in view^" just as the Greek tyrant at first 
would act, receives people from all parts, who 
came to submit their quarrels to his decision; 
in this way the whole country got into the habit 
of coming to him, and would have none else. 
Then he refused to continue, whereat lawlessness 
increased ; finally the people, glad to escape from 
injustice, gave up their liberty and made him 
despot. 



BOOK FIRST, 67 

Here indeed is the dualism still giving trouble 
enough; too much freedom, too little Liw; indi- 
vidual right lapsing into wrong done to the indi- 
vidual. The Greek leaned to the side of liberty 
even at the expense of justice ; the Oriental soon 
swept away freedom and often gave, but not 
always, justice. Necessarily law is one will at 
bottom, hence its face is toward absolutism; the 
political problem is to combine it with individ- 
ual freedom. It was therefore natural that the 
Medes, Orientals as they were, should soon lapse 
into despotism. 

At once Deioces begins to fortify and central- 
ize his power ; one city now, not many scattered 
ones, as the Orient has its one great imperial 
city. Lofty and strong walls; also a series of 
circles, one above another to the highest at the 
top of the hill-city ; seven circles with the king's 
palace innermost; then with the seven differ- 
ent colors the walls are painted. Thus we have 
the outer symbol of classes, of castes possibly ; 
strong social and civic divisions. Then he sur- 
rounds himself with the pompous ceremony of the 
Oriental despot, seeking to impress people that 
he is ** of a different nature." So Deioces united 
his people and ruled over them with severe 
justice. In him undoubtedly the historian re- 
flects to a degree the course of the Greek despot 
in Greek cities. Doioces, the first king, shows 
the origin of the Oriental empire — need of law. 



68 TEE FATHER OF HISTORY, 

So Persia came to be through Deioces and 
Cyrus. 

Deioces' son Phraortes conquered the Persians ; 
then his successor Cyaxares besieged Nineveh, 
when the Cimmerians, a Northern horde, made 
an irruption into Asia, and swept everything 
before it, staying for twenty-eight years. Still 
the Medes took Nineveh. Thus we see the 
Median rule extending itself, subjecting other 
peoples. But now there is to be a change, the 
Median power is to pass over to the Persian, and 
the man, the wonderful man, has appeared who 
is to accomplish it. A change of dynasty and 
national authority is decreed, the whole is a 
providential matter in contrast to human pur- 
pose. This fact is to be brought out by the 
marvelous tale of the birth of Cyrus, and the 
attempts to destroy him by his grandfather. King 
Astyages. 

Astyages has a dream, in fact two dreams, 
foreshadowing what is about to happen ; he 
orders Harpagus, a kinsman and most faithful 
of all the Medes, to destroy the child of his own 
daughter. But Harpagus hesitates to do the 
deed, he gives the infant to a shepherd and this 
shepherd is to expose it on the mountains. But the 
shepherd refuses to do the brutal act, and so he 
substitutes the dead child of his own wife, and 
saves the living child and brings it up as his 
own. 



BOOK FIBST. 69 

But the royal boy is discovered in one of his 
games, being chosen king by his playmates; the 
king recognizes him by his character. The 
Magi, the interpreters, say the time of danger 
is past and the boy is permitted to live; still 
Harpagus is punished by having his own child 
served up in a banquet, but this only forwards 
the plan by alienating Harpagus, who is now 
ready to revolt and help Cyrus. The outcome 
is that Cyrus gets to be king and rules over 
Medes and Persians. 

The great stress of the Tale is to show the 
providential side against all the contrary plans 
of men. The thing decreed will fulfill itself. 
Thus is suggested an order above the will of the 
individual, be it considered as a blind Fate or 
as an ordering Providence. Here the historian 
seems to seize the spirit of History (World- 
Spirit) as realizing itself in the case of Cyrus, as 
there is no word or oracle of the Gods, which pre- 
determines the event. Astyages is the instru- 
ment himself; in seeking to prevent, he brings 
about the very occurrence. Hence he is the 
man of Fate. 

Many are the relations of this story ; we think 
of the exposure of Romulus suckled by a wolf, 
or by the shepherdess whose name was Lupa. So 
here some said that Cyrus was suckled by a bitch, 
or by a woman whose name was Cyno (meaning 
bitch), as the historian puts it, The modern 



70 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

mythologist of a certain school sees here the 
primitive belief that man was reared or sprung 
of lower animals. Its sirailiarity to the Oedipus 
legend is also striking. For Laius, like Astyages, 
undertakes to expose the fateful child, and brings 
about the fulfillment of the oracle. Then the 
Thyestean banquet plays in — the serving up of 
the cooked child to the parent in revenge. 

The consciousness which creates such a legend 
feels the unusual element in the Great Man, and 
elevates it into the supernatural, which in a sense 
it is, being above the general level of humanity, 
and showing the providential order over the 
ordinary. Yet the historic element therein is 
not wanting ; at certain junctures the world- 
historical spirit takes a hand ; this spirit Herod- 
otus feels, even when he clothes it in a mythical 
garb. 

2. Pei^sia. Thus the Median kingdom passes 
over into the Persian through the instrumentality 
of the Great Man who is indeed the miracle. 
He will continue the work he has begun, which 
is to unify Western Asia. 

The Persians as well as the Medes belonged to 
the Aryan race; they, under their new leader, 
will descend into the great river valley of the 
Euphrates and Tigris and there subdue another 
race, the Semitic, which has had hitherto the chief 
influence in Western Asia. The historian makes 
the Persians in their customs (131-9) a kind of 



BOOK FIB ST. 71 

primitive, idyllic people, and doubtless suggested 
to Xenophon the idea of his romance, the 
Cyropaedia. Still it may be observed that some 
signs of degeneracy are manifested. From the 
age of live years their sons are instructed in three 
things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to 
speak the truth. A further consideration of the 
Persian state and character will come later. 

11. Culmination of Cyrus (141-200). In 
these chapters the historian brin£:s before us the 
conqueror Cyrus fulfilling his mission. He is 
shown breaking down two great limits to his 
Oriental sway. In the first place he subjugates 
the Greek cities of the coast througrh his lieu- 
tenants and thereby unifies Asia Minor under 
his rule ; thus the Asiatic Aryans of the West 
are his. In the second place the Babylonian 
Empire of the great river valley (of the 
Euphrates) he conquers, which is inhabited in 
the main by Semitic peoples. Cyrus is herein 
seen consolidating the two main races of West- 
ern Asia into one vast Empire. 

1. The Greek Thread (141-177). This the 
historian picks up again, after having dropped 
it for a good while (70), in order to develop 
the Oriental Thread in the Lydian and Median 
conquests. These two Threads wind through 
the entire History, and the student should note 
when one is left off and the other is re- 
sumed; also the different stvle of each is to 



72 THE FATHEB OF EI S TOBY. 

be scanned ; in the main the Greek Thread is 
more historical, the Asiatic more legendary. 
First is the complete subjection of Asia Minor, 
when the narrative returns to Middle Asia. Again 
we observe the stronor contrast of Greek with 
Oriental ; the Greek world is a series of small 
cities (no Nineveh or Babylon is among them), 
refusing to concentrate beyond a certain point. 
Then these cities are in a conflict with the Orient 
for external freedom, also in an internal conflict 
between one another and between classes and 
parties. Their principle is difference, separation, 
individuation. 

The first division is the three Greek tribes, 
Aeolians, lonians, Dorians, with their respective 
cities. Not one great metropolis, but twelve 
towns in Aeolis, and six for the Dorians. Not 
only would the three Greek tribes not unite, but 
each tribe would not take into membership other 
communities of the same tribe ; lonians exclude 
lonians, Dorians exclude Dorians. 

And yet we witness faint attempts at union. 
The lonians had a Panionium, a religious union 
for common worship of the Ionic cities glorying 
in the name which seemed to other Greeks a re- 
proach. Or does Herodotus, a Dorian, let a touch 
of tribal or local prejudice appear in this place, 
a Dorian contempt for the Ionian? But this 
religious unity seems never to have risen into a 
political unity, the jealousy was too great. 



BOOK FIBST. 73 

It is interesting to note that the idea of con- 
federation with its twofold principle, union on 
one side and local self-government on the other, 
had suorgested itself to the thinkers and states- 
men of Ionia before the present trouble. Of 
these the greatest was Thales. Exceedingly sug- 
gestive, indeed prophetic is the passage (see it in 
c. 170). That is, Thales had proposed to have 
a council at Teos, on an island and at the center 
of Ionia ; this council doubtless was to have cer- 
tain political powers, and the states were to be 
independent (autonomous). So we have a prim- 
itive Greek presentiment of the United States. 
This idea foreshadowed in Asia will never after- 
wards wholly die; it will reappear in old Greece 
in various forms, of which the most important will 
be the Achaean League; it will move through 
History till it crosses the Ocean and there finds 
realization. Thales, then, sent the winged 
thought on its flight down Time; himself not a 
Greek wholly, but with Semitic blood in his 
veins, a cosmopolitan ; surely the greatest figure 
appearing in these times. 

Such were the lonians ; the Dorian cities to 
the South showed in general the same tendencies. 
They too had a common religious festival to 
Triopean Apollo. The Dorians manifest the 
same spirit of exclusiveness toward their own, 
** taking care not to admit any of the neighbor- 
ing Dorians.'' Herodotus speaks of the expul- 



74 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

sion of his own city Halicarnassus from this 
league on account of a violation of a sacred 
custom by a citizen. 

The twelve cities of the Aeolians on the conti- 
nent follow the example of the lonians and 
submit to the Persian; the islanders who are 
Aeolians remain free (Lesbos and Tenedos). 
It is clear from this that lonians took the lead. 
Here, too, we observe that Lesbian did not spare 
Lesbian, but enslaved him ; Arisba is subjected 
by Methymnae. Then note how ungrateful the 
exiled Colo[)honians acted toward Sm3^rna, which 
had received them. No wonder the Greek cities 
were suspicious and jealous of one another. 

Now what will these Greek people do in their 
emergency? Send embassadors to Sparta, which 
was evidently looked upon as the great supporter 
and defender of Greek spirit — not to Athens, 
which is still under tyranny, lonians likewise 
send to Sparta. The Phocaeans speak ; Pythermus 
shows the most spirit of all these lonians in oppo- 
sition to the Persian (Miletus had come to terms). 
But the Spartans would not help the lonians 
openly, yet they sent word to Cyrus not to 
injure any Greek city. Cyrus taunts them, and 
threatens, but events call him back to Persia. 

The conquest of the Greek cities, however, 
goes on under lieutenants of Cyrus; the heroic 
people in this struggle are the Phocaeans, whose 
courage is duly celebrated by the historian, who 



BOOK FIB ST. 75 

mentions their long voyages as far as Spain, and 
their settlement in Sardinia. The Teians also 
acted in nearly the same way, similar to Athens 
later. But the Persian was too strong ; even 
the islanders at last submitted in terror. 

What was to be done? Bias, the wise man, of 
Priene, advised colonization, the lonians should 
go to Sardinia and there rule, holding under 
sway a large island by means of their ships. 
But that was not written in their destiny. An- 
other people, world-historical, was rising in the 
West ; the Greeks were not to rule in Hesperia. 
But they now have almost completed their func- 
tion in the World's History, these Asiatic 
Greeks; they will never again mean to the world 
or to themselves what they now mean. They 
bftve had their time; the World-Spirit, moving 
westward, settled down in these cities for a while 
but is preparing to pass on. 

The lonians and Aeolians are conquered and 
incorporated in the Persian army. The Persian 
general next subjects the more barbarous peo- 
ples, the remaining contingent of earlier tribes — 
Carians, Caunians, Lycians, of whom the his- 
torian gives some details. 

The Greek cities of the coast are now sub- 
jugated to Persia, and some on the islands have 
submitted ; thus there is a unification of all Asia 
Minor under Persia, which has asserted the 
imperial principle of the Orient. Asia Minor 



76 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY, 

was a mass of many cities, tribes and peoples in 
a condition of conflict — Semites and Aryans 
evidently intermingled. We note (1) the Greek 
cities of the coast; (2) the backward tribes of 
the Hellenic stock, Pelasgic (Carians, Caunians, 
etc.); (3) the nations under kings, Lydia, 
Phrygia, etc. All these are swallowed up into 
the Orient, the period of separation is ended. 
Now Asia Minor belonged to Asia, yet the Greek 
cities brought over or generated the new prin- 
ciple of the Occident, which is at present sup- 
pressed in this country. 

Most distinctly has the historic battle between 
Orient and Occident opened along this coast; the 
present outcome is defeat of the West on this 
Eastern soil. Every Greek who at this time 
crosses to Asia is not free. We may see in it 
the discipline of the Greeks, though external; 
they have to obey a unity now, a central 
authority outside their own city. 

Still the Oriental sway of the Persian is not 
without opposition among the Orientals. The 
semi-hellenized Lydians are ready to revolt under 
Pactyas ( 154) as soon as Cyrus departs for home, 
*' since Babylon was in his way, and the Bac- 
trians and the Sacse, as well as the Aegyptians.*' 
Thus the conqueror is seen struggling with his 
boundaries in every direction. The Lydian 
revolt, however, is soon suppressed, and the 
ringleader is captured, after fleeing from one 



BOOK FIHST. 11 

Greek city to another for protection, beinoj torn 
from a sanctuary and delivered up by the Chians 
for a reward. An anecdote accounts for the 
rapid degeneracy of the Lydians ; they are for- 
bidden to have weapons of war, and are required 
** to wear tunics under their cloaks and buskins 
on their feet ; " moreover, the rising generation 
is taught to play on the cithara and to sell by 
retail; thus *' from men they shall quickly become 
women." But the Lydians have simply followed 
the general law of Oriental peoples : a hardy, 
uncivilized nation is unified within under a great 
leader, it conquers the neighboring civilized 
nations, and passes with them into effeminacy 
and final subjugation. The Persians, the present 
conquerors, will verify the same law. 

2. The Oriental Thread (177-201). The 
historian makes a distinction between Lower 
Asia (Asia Minor) and Upper Asia; to this last 
Cyrus devoted himself, '* subduing every tribe 
and lettinof none go." But the account of these 
conquests is omitted, with the exception of two 
or three cases. 

Nor will the historian here give any record of 
the Assyrian kings. Only the queens will he 
mention, Semiramis and Nitocris, both of whom 
constructed useful works. The memory of 
Nitocris is specially celebrated by Herodotus, 
who probably beheld in his travels some of the 
works ascribed to her. As usual he spins around 



78 THE FA THE B OF HISTORY, 

the fact a garment of romance ; he accounts for 
the actual through the mythical. 

The description of Babylon is that of a vast 
Oriental citv, and is in the strono^est contrast to 
the small Greek city. A centralized power is 
shown in every part; an unlimited control of 
human labor; an attempt to bar out the enemy 
by walls, of which two, one inside the other, 
encompass the city, doubtless with much spare 
land inside not covered by buildings and used 
for tillage in case of a siege. More than 200 
square miles of land lay within these walls, 
which were 200 cubits high (over 300 feet). 
Naturally the correctness of these figures of 
Herodotus has been questioned (see Rawlin- 
son's Herodotus, ad Joe). This Babylonian 
work has been estimated to contain nearly 
double the cubic contents of the great wall of 
China, which is 1,200 miles long, 20 to 25 feet 
high, 15 to 20 feet broad. 

Thus the historian brings before his country- 
men the Oriental idea of colossality. The 
Greek structure was comparatively small, such 
as the acropolis, the temple; even the so-called 
Cyclopean masonry with its huge blocks of stone 
incloses a very limited space at Mycenae and 
Tiryns. But the Greek had the idea of propor- 
tion, not of hugeness, which was to him barbaric. 
Moderation is his well-known principle; a little 
town was his political unit, not an immense empire. 



BOOK FIBST. 79 

Doubtless the historian, Greek that he was, 
refused to insert at this point the long annals of 
Assyrian monarchs, as it would throw his narra- 
tive out of proportion, making it unwieldy with 
a vast mass of Oriental matter. So he cuts 
short the account of the conquests of Cyrus in 
the East, lest it be disproportionate to the 
Greek or Western thread of his History. 

The walls of Babylon, though so immense, do 
not, however, keep out the foe. The Babylonians 
retired within the inclosure, expecting external 
protection ; they even engaged in a festival dur- 
ing the siege. Cyrus deflected the river which 
ran through the city and entered the latter along 
the bed of the stream. There was no stout 
defense on the part of the people, no heroic 
deeds of valor such as were often witnessed in 
Greece. Why should there be? The people 
were essentially slaves, they had nothing to fight 
for, one despot was as good as another ; indeed 
they were not unwilling probably to change mas- 
ters for a while. So it is with so many of these 
Oriental conquests: the rulers only are changed ; 
the tribute, otherwise the same, passes into new 
hands. When these rulers become enervated by 
luxury, they are violently shoved aside by a new 
set young and vigorous, till these in turn become 
enervated. 

This rich plain is the condition of civilization 
on the one hand and of eflfeminacy on the other. 



80 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

What the Babylonian eats is mainly the gift of 
nature ; what the Greek eats is mainly the 
product of his own labor on an unkindly soil. 
The yield of corn on the Assyrian lands is pro- 
digious to a Greek mind ; but there are no trees 
(except the cultivated palm), no produce of the 
fig, vine and olive. A dead uniformity of toil 
in the one case; in the other a variety of work, 
coupled with skill, foresight, versatility. In like 
manner in Greece there is a varied scenery, moun- 
tain, valley, sea; in Babylonia the level prairie. 

When we pass from land to water, there is a 
similar contrast. What a difference between a 
sail on the Euphrates and on the Aegaean ! The 
Oriental floats like his vessel down the river, 
carried to his destination by an external power ; 
the current bears him on, and he is dependent 
or resigned. Such is his religion ; so he gets 
to the Capital and so he gets to Heaven. But 
the Greek sailor (and most of the Greeks had 
something of the sailor in their fiber through 
experience with sea, which borders on every 
Greek province except one — Arcadia) must be 
self-determined, self-reliant in his little craft on 
the waves and in the winds of the Greek waters. 
Such is the diflferent training which nature, the 
first teacher, gives to these two diflferent peoples. 

The ethical contrast between the two peoples 
is seen in the customs relative to virginity and 
marriage. The abominations of Babylon have 



BOOK FIBST, 81 

become proverbial through the prophetic de- 
nunciations of the Old Testament, for all time 
that city will be known as the harlot and the 
scarlet woman. Moreover, we may note here a 
contrast between the Jew and the Greek looking 
at the same social phenomenon ; the one is the 
fiery moral preacher and prophet, the other is 
the observer, impartial, quite calm, though he 
too breaks out into disapproval at ** the most 
shameless custom of the Babylonians '% the 
woman's offering of herself in the temple of the 
Goddess Mylitta (199). 

The activity of the mythical spirit we may 
observe in what is said Cyrus did to the river 
Gyndes (189). Because it drowned one of the 
sacred white horses which plunged into it, he is 
said to have divided it into three hundred and 
sixty small channels, making *' its stream so 
weak that women henceforth shall cross it with- 
out wetting their knees.'* A strain of insolence 
is thus ascribed to Cyrus, such as we shall here- 
after see manifested by Xerxes. But there is 
hardly a doubt that these channels were cut for 
the purpose of irrigation, and were probably 
connected with the sun, one for every day of the 
the year. Legend undertakes to account for the 
fact and connects it with the Persian hero, in his 
great enterprise against Babylon. Such an out- 
burst of caprice and passion is characteristic of 
the Oriental monarch, yet shows his power. 



82 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

III. Defeat and death of Cyrils. This is the 
third act of the Cyrus drama, taking place after 
the eulminatioa of his career in the conquest of 
Asia Minor and Babylon. We have noted that 
Cyrus, like the Oriental conqueror in general, 
frets against all external limits, he cannot endure 
a boundary to his country or to himself. He 
will be universal, not from within, through 
mind, but from without, through a continual 
annulment of physical limitations. So he gets 
annulled himself in his physical limitation. 

To the North and Northeast of Persia lay a 
vast territory, which bounded his Empire, and 
which he determined to make his own. There 
dwelt the Massagetae, generally supposed to be 
the ancestors of the Goths, Teutons, perchance 
our own forefathers in their barbarous period. 
They were under a queen Tomyris ; it is curious 
to see how Herodotus brings into the foreground 
these queens of the Orient; in which connection 
we should remember that his own city, Hali- 
carnassus, during his life, had a queen, Arte- 
misia, who also distinguished herself in war. 

The Cyrus drama now falls into dialogue. 
The queen bids the Persian king desist from his 
attempted conquest : ** you rule over your dom- 
inions, and bear to see me rule over mine.'* So 
said Tomyris, really voicing a Greek view of the 
situation ; but Cyrus the Oriental could not bear 
to see her ruling over her own ; thus there is a 



BOOK FIRST. 83 

limit to his land and to his authority. Then she 
challenges him to fight, whereby Croesus is intro- 
duced giving his opinion, which is a warning to 
Cyrus that he is a man and not an immortal 
(hence he should respect the limits of the finite 
being), and that there is *' a cycle in human 
affairs," which does not permit the same man to 
be always successful. After thus rebuking the 
fatuity of the Persian monarch, Croesus suggests 
a stratagem, which Cyrus follows, winning the 
victory and capturing the queen's son who at 
the first chance slays himself through shame at 
his capture. 

A second battle takes place in which Cyrus is 
slain, and his body falls into the hands of Tomy- 
ris. Then occurs the tragic nemesis in a most 
striking passage. Queen Tomyris plunges his 
severed head into a skin filled with human blood, 
saying, ** I shall glut thee with blood as I 
threatened.'* 

Thus retribution has come and the Cyrus 
drama closes. He dashes himself to pieces 
against the outer bounds of his world, against 
the barbarous limit. Darius will do the same 
thing later against Scythia on the North, and just 
escape with his life; Xerxes will throw himself 
upon the Hellenic boundary, and be driven back 
defeated. Persia has begun to find her limits 
already in the time of Cyrus; still more she will 
come upon them in her later history. 



84 THE FATHER OF BISTOBT, 

Thus the Cyrus drama is a tragedy in contrast 
with the Croesus drama. Cyrus subdues, slays, 
till he gets his own deed back ; Croesus is trans- 
formed by his misfortune internally, is converted 
to Solon, and is saved at the last moment. 
Solon's is, therefore, the saving view of the world, 
the view which eradicates insolence (authadia) 
and thereby preserves the individual from the 
stroke of retribution. Some such thought under- 
lies these two dramas of the First Book, with 
their different outcomes. 



OBSEBVATIONS ON BOOR FIE ST. 

The structural principle of the present Book 
has shown itself, we hope, in the preceding ex- 
position. Two great characters are seized and 
are portrayed in a cycle of development — Croe- 
sus and Cyrus — which produces the feeling of 
an artistic whole in each case. But into this 
cycle of a great individual the historic move- 
ment of the epoch is interwoven, whose events 
are chronicled in the order of time. Thus from 
the standpoint of structure there is a complete 
interfusion of poetry and history, peculiar to 
our historian. But as yet the poetic dominates 
the historical, though the former be moving into 
the latter. 

The contents correspond ; the historian does 
not hesitate to introduce the supernatural, the 
mythical, the oracular, the fictitious, more par- 
ticularly when he wishes to set forth the con- 
trolling order of things, the providential element 
which gleams through events. Herodotus has 

(85) 



86 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

the conceptioD of a World-History, indistinct 
yet at work. The counterpart of the Honaeric 
Gods is in him, yet in a state of transformation. 
I. The Delphic Oracle, Some things can be 
explained about the Delphic Oracle and some can 
not; when the mystery is interpreted, it is no 
longer a mystery ; when the Oracle is made over 
into the terms of the understanding, it is no 
longer oracular. We can, however, make clear 
in a certain degree the consciousness of which 
such a phenomenon is the expression. 

1. Imagine a .people divided into a thousand 
distinct communities without any political bond 
of authority, yet with a feeling of unity in race, 
language, customs, religion, in fact with a feel- 
ing: of a orreat common destinv and of oneness 
of spirit — and we have the general sphere of 
the Oracle. It has no such sphere in the Orient, 
with the one authoritative, absolute ruler, who 
must be himself the Oracle for his people; the 
Hebrew prophet was not an Oracle, though both 
shared in the prophetic consciousness. Note 
that the Lydiad is full of oracular utterances 
which quite disappear in the Cyrus drama, except 
in the Greek thread, though there is the prophetic 
dream. The Oracle, therefore, performs a dis- 
tinct function for its people, the Hellenic, and 
even reaches over into semi-Hellenic and bar- 
barous peoples with its influence. 

2. The Oracle sought to preserve the unity of 



BOOK FIB ST. 87 

the Greek stock by promoting internal peace 
among jealous and combative communities. It 
would not permit, for instance, its favorite Sparta 
to absorb Arcadia (66). It worked through sen- 
timent and religion, not through political author- 
ity, which it had to keep shy of in the main. 
Religion must influence politics indirectly. 

3. It favored and united the Greek against the 
Barbarian, though the latter also came to the 
sanctuary with rich presents. In the main, but 
not without some ambiguity, it supported the 
Occident against the Orient. The case of 
Croesus is an instance. 

4. It promoted colonization in the interest of 
the Greek race against the barbarous world, and 
in the interest of the inner peace of cities, which 
often had to get rid of one of two political 
leaders, and send him off to found a colony. 

5. Such an Oracle was sure to be asked about 
matters concerning which it had no business to 
give a response — matters special, personal, not 
of universal import. Yet it had to answer, or 
recognize its own limit, or the limit of the God. 
The result was it took refuge in ambiguity, ob- 
scurity, riddle, cunning, quackery, charlatanism. 
Such was the outcome of the whole oracular 
business in Greece, and the Oracles at last 
became dumb because they had nothing true to 
utter. But this corruptible strain was in them 
from the beginning:. 



88 TEE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

6. We still inquire about the procedure in 
getting: the oracular utterance. Out of a fissure 
in the earth over which stood a tripod, rose a 
sort of exhalation (supposed to produce a kind 
of trance or ecstasy when breathed). Upon this 
tripod the priestess (the Pythia) took her seat, 
came under the influence, and muttered incoher- 
ent words, which were taken down by men 
present and put into hexameters usually, which 
the consultor received as his response. 

The numerous points involved in this process 
cannot be discussed. There is a psychical ques- 
tion in regard to the Pythia — mesmeric, mag- 
netic, mediumistic, theosophic ; this we shall at 
once let drop. But the intermediate set of men, 
the college of priests or the committee who 
framed the oracles — what shall we say to them ? 
We shall have to grant them the shaping in- 
fluence, be it of wisdom, folly, cunning; they 
were often wise, must have often been in great 
doubt, but in the main were Pan-Hellenic. 

7. The locality at Delphi is impressive, Na- 
ture herself has the Delphic hint. The Greek 
required this outer suggestion, he was extremely 
sensitive to the still small voice of environment, 
his poetical bent led him to blend nature and 
spirit into one harmony. He would undertake 
no enterprise without the favorable omen ; he 
required the external whisper from his surround- 
ings before he would act in an important matter. 



BOOK FIEST. 89 

He could not as yet wholly determine himself 
within himself. So he demanded an oracular 
statement as his starting-point; so too this orac- 
ular statement at Delphi required the murmur or 
the raving of the Pythia as its starting-point; 
not till then could the college of priests frame the 
response out of their own view of the circum- 
stances. They must first be impelled from with- 
out, then they can act from within. 

They reflected something like our public 
opinion. How does the Greek world feel about 
Croesus? Can it make any real alliance with an 
Oriental despot who has enslaved Greek cities? 
The Delphic instinct (Delphi was called the 
omphalos, the navel) must have felt the ques- 
tion as well as the response of all Hellas, and yet 
it must be very circumspect, indeed ambiguous 
toward the great Asiatic power. 

In such cases we can recognize the sphere of 
presentiment and prophecy. *' The soul has a 
prophetic element/' says Plato; it is continually 
giving out the note of anticipation. Especially 
is the undeveloped, prehistoric soul in this con- 
dition ; it is like the child whose play fore- 
shadows the future man and even the future in- 
stitutional world which he is growing into. So 
too the Oracle has a play element, spontaneous, 
premonitory ; it is a child utterance of a natural 
soul in its child epoch, which passes away with 
the growth of the self-conscious reason. 



90 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY, 

II. Orientalism and Hellenism, The reader 
of Herodotus is always seeking to formulate for 
himself the difference between the Orient and 
Greece, as this is the grand dualism from which 
arises not only the present History, but History 
in general and the historic consciousness. We 
must often repeat that on the Greco-Asiatic line 
herein laid down the great conflict between East 
and West took place, with which conflict History 
opens and the conception of History, and which 
calls forth the man, living in this district, and 
both seeing and sharing in the conflict, who is to 
record the fact. 

1. In the Family, which is the basis of all in- 
stitutional life, the Persian and the Oriental iren- 
erally is polygamous ; the Greek and the Occi- 
dental orenerallv is monooramous. Thus the East- 
ern husband is a domestic despot, mild though he 
may be; he takes a new wife when he wants one, 
and she cannot exact from him the same unity of 
love and devotion which she is required to man- 
ifest toward him. The caprices and passions of 
the despot have a starting-point in the domestic 
circle. 

2. In the State the Oriental ruler is absolute 
and the subject is a slave, in contrast with the 
free Greek citizen. Authority belongs to the 
Orient, freedom to the Occident. Throughout 
the present History this difference is set forth. 
To be sure, it cannot be affirmed that the Greeks 



BOOK FIJRST. 91 

were wholly free (they had slaves), or that 
they had the complete conception of freedom. 
It is a well-known statement of the philosopher 
Hegel that in the Oriental world one man 
was free, in the Greek world some men were 
free, in the Modern world all men are free. 

3. In the Orient there is the tendency to con- 
solidation through conquest; in Greece is the 
counter principle of autonomy for each com- 
munity. Herein each side is an extreme ; be- 
tween the two lies the golden mean ; in the one 
case unity runs into despotism ; in the other, 
individuality runs into selfishness and anarchy. 

4. Alono^ the same line of thouo^ht we see that 
the Orient in its artistic expression seeks magni- 
tude, while the Greek aims at proportion. 

5. In the physical features of the Orient and 
Hellas we can trace the suggestion of the differ- 
ence in their spirit. The one is very large, the 
other very small ; the one has great river val- 
leys and plains in which civilization begins; the 
other is divided up and diversified in every part 
by mountain, sea, little streams and valleys. 
The Greek was mountaineer, lowlander, sailor, 
all in one; nature would not permit him to sink 
into the uniformity of the Orient 

6. The nations of Western Asia are not fully 
historical, yet are by no means devoid of a his- 
tory; we may call them semi-historical. There 
are long lists of kings, with accounts of con- 



92 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

quests and rebellions; but that does not make 
History in its Occidental sense. Writing there 
is on brick and stone, records of some monarch, 
yet no transferable history appealing to the 
individual; little or no account of great national 
deeds, nationality as well as individuality being 
quite sunk in the one man, the monarch. War 
seems to settle mainly one thing : Which of the 
two despots shall rule? The people remain 
pretty much the same whoever rules. History 
deals with national life, which is in the Orient, 
but is not 3^et explicit. 

7. Why this continual desire of conquest in 
the Orient? The Oriental spectacle is a never- 
ending series of rising and falling empires; 
why cannot these nations endure one another, 
and exist side by side together, as in modern 
Europe? The Oriental State cannot recognize 
the neighbor State as a State, as itself in fact; 
there is but one State, one ruler, one authority. 
The external limit to itself it cannot make 
internal, and thus transcend the same ; it must 
break down the limit from the outside. 

The Oriental does not know what to do with 
individuality, and hence seeks to destroy it or 
violently to repress it. This individual State 
appears with its limit against the Persian State ; 
thus it confines and so far controls the Persian 
spirit, which marches forward to remove the 
limit to itself. For all spirit. Oriental too, is 



BOOK FIRST, 93 

inherently limit-transcending, though in very 
different ways. In the United States each State 
recognizes the other to be just what it is, having 
the same rights in all things ; thus the 
State limit is really no limit of exclusion, 
and the States are truly united and form 
one Nation. Just the reverse was the Oriental 
consciousness, which had as yet hardly a glim- 
mer of such a recognition. Hence it could 
transcend its limit only though breaking down 
the same by force, by a negative act. But the 
return of such an act was inevitable ; every 
nation in destroying a nation, is destroying itself . 
Hence the monotonous series of rises and falls of 
empires in the Orient. 

Just as little can the Orient recognize the indi- 
vidual man in his freedom as it can the individual 
State, and for the same general reason. Such a 
man would be a limit to the ruler; to the single 
will other wills must be made nought. The 
Oriental ruler is the law, — yet not the written 
law, which would again be a limit. The East 
has had lawgivers, but they are exceptional in a 
despotic world. The true lawgiver, in whom the 
law separates itself from the person, is Greek, 
is Solon, Lycurgus ; finally the lawgiver must 
personally vanish in the law, and not be known 
as an individuality ; note, for example, the 
Roman Law, in which Jurisprudence attains its 
pure universality, being evolved, not from one 



94 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

brain, but from a nation, and that nation too the 
universal ruler and lawgiver. 

8. With Persia, however, development begins, 
history connects it with Greece and the Occident, 
and the historic continuity starts, which has not 
since been seriously interrupted. 

Persia simply held together the subject peo- 
ples, did not transform them, they were the same 
in religion, customs and character as before. An 
external bond of power suppressed war between 
countries and allowed a certain inner unfolding. 
But the Greeks had the inner bond of race, 
religion, and spirit, though they lacked the more 
external bond, or political union. The Persian 
worshiped light; he was to a degree the light 
which shone on Western Asia, made all its dis- 
tinctions manifest, and left them as they were. 
The Persian army, as we shall see in the expedi- 
tion of Xerxes, was a vast aggregate — men of 
the sea, men of the plain, men of the mountain ; 
an aggregate of races also — Aryan, Semitic, 
Turanian. No political limit is allowed; all 
other distinctions are not interfered with. The 
war will show that the Greek cannot be sub- 
sumed under this external aororreofation . 

III. Thales and Miletus. Of both we have 
already spoken, but they deserve repeated men- 
tion and thought. Of the cities of the Asiatic 
coast, Miletus stood far in advance as regards the 
arts, commerce, civilization, though the people 



BOOK FIB ST. 95 

of the small city of Phocaea were the most 
heroic. A wonderful development had taken 
place in Miletus, which apparently culminated 
about the time of Croesus, or a little before. 
It was a sea-faring town, and so could defy the 
attempts of the Lydian kings from the land; 
still it had also its territory and its agriculture. 
It was a center of trade, of manufactures, 
specially ; of navigation ; art and poetry were 
not wanting but particularly natural science 
flourished among a people who traded in the 
physical products of separated countries. 
Geography must have had a good start ere 
Anaximines, a Milesian, could have constructed 
the first map. History, too, had begun in 
Miletus; probably the most distinguished pre- 
cursor of Herodotus was Hecataeus, one of 
its citizens. Astronomy necessarily follows in 
the wake of navigation; the sailor will have to 
study the stars. 

There is no doubt that politics flourished in 
Miletus, as in all these Greek towns. The leaninsf 
was toward democracy, yet with other tendencies. 
Political speculation probably began in Miletus ; 
its citizens had started to think and to philoso- 
phize, the three forms of government — democ- 
racy, aristocracy, monarchy were seen in the 
countries about them, and had supporters in the 
city, which had in its own history more or less 
experience of the democrat, the tyrant and the 



96 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

aristocrat. Herodotus in a well-known passage 
projects a Greek discussion of these three forms of 
government into the heart of Persia (III. 80-82). 

But the most striking and important political 
idea which can be traced to Miletus is that which 
is ascribed to Thales (I. 170), and which 
receives the commendation of our Historian, 
though he introduces it in a merely casual man- 
ner. Thales ** who was of Phoenician extrac- 
tion," advised the separate Ionic cities *' to 
constitute one general council in the central 
place of Ionia (which was Teos), but the cities 
were to remain independent as before," each 
with its own local government. Here is dis- 
tinctly the idea of a constitutional confederacy 
of States into which our modern world is just 
beginning to enter, and which is the government 
of the future. Still this idea made its appear- 
ance among those Ionic cities of Asia Minor some 
600 years B. C, being called forth by the ne- 
cessities of their situation. 

Thales is manifestly the great man of the 
epoch, nT)t, however, the great man of action, 
but the thinker. These cities did not produce 
any supreme, all-dominating man of action, like 
Themistocles, like Alexander. But a mighty 
intellectual force was manifested in Thales. 
Already we have spoken of his prediction of the 
eclipse, which is supposed to have taken place in 
the reign of Alyattes, father of Croesus, during a 



BOOK FIB ST. 97 

war between the Lydians and the Medes (I. 74). 
Thus the consciousness which underlies physical 
science had been born. Thales looked upon 
nature as the expression of law, not as the play- 
thing of divine caprice; otherwii?e he could not 
have calculated the ecli[)se. With him at least 
'the mythical has passed into the scientific stage, 
or the beginning thereof. In a parallel manner 
we have noticed the mythical passing into the 
historical stage, which sees the deed as it is, 
not as determined by a supernatural power. 
Science and History have thus made their start 
in Miletus, springing from a common conscious- 
ness. 

But the chief fame of Thales is yet to be men- 
tioned : he is celebrated as the first Greek phi- 
losopher; his is the first great name in that 
discipline, whose essence is thought, and which 
is still working in undiminished energy down to 
this day. Thales asked the question : What is 
the principle of all things? The great advance 
is that man could ask such a question, whatever 
be the answer. Thouojht is seekins: to think 
itself as the primal essence, and philosophy 
begins. This may be likewise considered to be a 
grand step out of the Orient to the Occident, 
especially at this early day. Indeed the Orient 
has hardly yet philosophy in the Occidental 
sense; all philosophy has a tendency there to 
become theosophy, the nature of which is rather 

7 



98 THE FATHER OF HISTOBT. 

religious or mythological than philosophical. 
Thales, however, makes the grand spirit-step 
{^dreifacli merkwurdiger Geisierschritt^y and 
lands himself in the science of all sciences 
(scienlia 077111111771 scientiarum)^ in that old Greek 
town of Miletus. The History of Philosophy, 
accordingly, starts with him and his Ionic 
School, and records the movement of Thought 
trying to think Thought as the principle of the 
Universe, in an unbroken line of names down to 
the present. 

The answer of Thales to his own question is 
also worthy of being noted here, as it is 
characteristic of his time and of his city. He 
said that the universal principle of things is 
water; man has to think water as the true 
essence. We have already noted how the sea is 
everywhere in Greece, and enters into Greek life 
and character. The sea in those old times was 
the realm of freedom, which neither the Lydian 
nor the Persian was able to fetter. The 
sea gave to Miletus its importance and 
independence, rendering it for a long 
period inexpugnable against the Oriental. 
The mastery of the sea was indeed the 
grand new mastery, which finally in the hands 
of the Athenians overwhelmed the Persian, 
and rescued Europe. The old philosopher of 
Miletus, looking out from the shore upon the 
sea, and beholding the going and returning ships 



BOOK FIBST, 99 

of his city, may well have felt a strong attach- 
ment — he must have been a sailor too — for 
water. Seeing before him the numberless 
islands of the Aegaean floating, as it were, in the 
water, he would naturally recall the Homeric 
conception of an Ocean stream, in which the 
whole earth mio:ht be floatinor. Thus water is 
the all-holding, the boundless which everywhere 
bounds, the infinite limiting the finite, the one 
thing out of which all things flow. 

Such we may conceive to have been some of 
the early struggles of Thought — seeking to get 
back to itself through a form of the external 
world. Another characteristic we may mention 
here : water is the formable, ever suggesting 
forms to the imagination — Tritons, Nereids, 
Mermaids; it thus caught the Greek plastic 
sense. Art fixes these fluid forms which, how- 
ever, are first suggested by the fluid water. 
(See the use to which Goethe has put Thalesand 
the water philosophy in the Second Part of 
Faust, Act II. ) 

Such must have been the intellectual activity in 
ancient Miletus nearly 2500 years ago, antedating 
that of Athens and continental Hellas by a century 
at least. The starting-point of the Occident with 
its new idea we may place here, in its conscious 
form ; this idea seems to have gotten distinctly 
aware of itself in Miletus and its philosopher. 
The struggle with Lydia was indeed prolific ; 



100 TEE FATHEB OF HISTORY, 

the conflict with that Oriental people called 
forth the intellectual beginning of the Occident ; 
here we catch glimpses of the birth of History, 
Science, Philosophy, all of them specifically 
Occidental disciplines. 

The Phoenician cities were sea-faring, commer- 
cial, colonizing as well as the Greek (Miletus 
alone is said to have planted eighty colonies). 
Tyre and Sidon must have been active intellec- 
tually, but they did not reveal their knowledge ; 
they have left behind themselves no History, 
Science, or Philosophy. 

IV. Antecedents of Herodotus. Note again 
that Herodotus begins his History with the con- 
flict which called forth the historic consciousness 
of the Occident; that is, he begins his History 
with the beginning of History in its Occidental 
sense. This conflict took place about one hun- 
dred years before his own time. The interven- 
ing period produced many incipient forms of 
writing, which go to make History, and which 
contributed also to the makins: of Herodotus. 
The most important of these antecedent classes 
of writers we may designate. 

1. The mythographer, who sought to bring 
the Greek mythical world — gods, demi-gods, 
and heroes — into some kind of an ordered 
whole. The understanding, no longer myth- 
creating, reduces the vast mass of transmitted 
mythical material into a system of which the 



BOOK FIEST, 101 

work of Apollodorus may be taken as a sample. 
Herodotus has this tendency also; see the open- 
ing chapters of the First Book, as well as his 
attempt to bring into harmony the Greek and 
the Egyptian Pantheon in the Second Book. 

2. Ethnography, the description of tribes and 
nations by travelers ; several such works had 
been written before the time of Herodotus, who 
was himself a great traveler, and whose History 
devotes much space to accounts of barbarous, 
Greek, and Oriental peoples. 

3. Geography, the description of the physical 
earth and its products. A commercial city, like 
Miletus, must have found this science a necessary 
help to its trade. Hecataeus, the Milesian, a pre- 
decessor of Herodotus, wrote a book, which was 
doubtless chiefly geographical, and which is cited 
by our Historian. 

4. Chroniclers had already appeared before 
Herodotus and had recorded events in succession, 
putting stress upon the time element of affairs. 
Hence arose the need of a chronological stand- 
ard. Chronology is not very distinct in Herodo- 
tus, since he has no era or universal measurer of 
historic time. Each country took for such a 
purpose its own line of rulers, and each city its 
list of magistrates. But the question must rise 
in History, what rulers and events are cotempo- 
raneous? At last Greece found a canon in the 
Olympiad, but Herodotus does not employ it, 



102 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

though he has his way of indicating what is 
successive and what is synchronous. 

5. Herodotus has taken these afore-mentioned 
elements into his History, which is, however, 
something altogether distinct from each of them 
and from all of them together. We shall find in 
him the Mythus, the historical event in time, a 
description of lands and of peoples ; but there 
comes just that which makes his book unique — 
its conception and organization. There is, first 
of all, that wonderful artistic sense, which has 
already been dwelt upon in treating of this First 
Book with its Lydiad and Persiad ; but the whole 
work shows the same constructive power, accom- 
panied by dramatic vividness and skill in drawing 
characters. His History is thrown into the form 
of recording a great collision, whose spiritual 
principle is the heart of the entire action, which 
unfolds itself and orders itself from beojinnino: 
to end, making the whole avast work of art that 
includes many dramas. 

V . Personal relation of the Historian to the First 
Book. We often ask ourselves in the course of 
the present narrative, What were the sources of the 
Historian's information, about Lydia and about 
Persia, for instance? There were native Lydian 
chroniclers whom he doubtless consulted ; he 
also refers to the learned among the Persians 
for his authority in certain cases. But the 
main source of his statements is " inquiry," 



BOOK FIRST, 103 

which is the original meaning of the word 
History. 

The chief scene of the occurrences of the 
present Book is laid in the western part of Asia 
Minor, in the Historian's own home, as it were; 
the incidents pertaining to Croesus he must have 
often heard, from his childhood on; tradition 
had woven around the Lydian king the web of 
fact and fable, which the Historian has here 
ordered. The materials were given, but his is 
the organizing hand, the architectonic soul. 
Herodotus had lived through the great conflict 
of Greece with Xerxes ; he saw the germ of the 
same conflict in the war of Croesus with the 
Greek cities of the Asiatic coast ; he recognized 
the same principle in both and made it the 
creative idea of his entire History. 

The stay of the Historian at Athens (some- 
where in middle life) shows its influence in the 
present Book. It may well be doubted if he 
reached fully the depth of his great conception, 
till he had come into contact with Athenian 
spirit. Athens had done the grand deed, and 
knew it ; that is, Athens had shown the mightiest 
will-power in resisting Oriental domination, 
and was well aware of the meaning of the strug- 
gle. To will-power she added thought-power; 
Herodotus saw her in the very bloom of her 
intellectual greatness, in the age of Pericles, 
when she had become self-conscious in art, in 



104 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

poetry, and especially in philosophy, which is 
just the self-knowing discipline. 

On the other hand no Athenian wrote or 
could write the history of the Persian War, and 
transmit the historic record of Athens* greatest 
glory. It needed an outsider, free from the 
partizanship and enmity of the continental 
Greeks ; it needed a man who could feel and 
trace the beginninor of the conflict in the strug- 
gle of the Asiatic Greeks with the Lydian 
monarch. No Athenian could know much of 
this matter, and would not be likely to attach 
much importance to it, if he knew it. So 
Herodotus, an Asiatic Greek, yet absorbing the 
Athenian spirit, was the chosen man to make the 
complete and impartial record for all time. 
Another reminiscence of the stay of Herodotus 
at Athens is the use he makes of the Athenian 
lawgiver and philosopher, Solon, in the present 
Book. To the Athenians of the age of Pericles, 
when Herodotus was in Athens, the name of 
Solon was revered as the father of the Athenian 
democracy ; Solon was the man who resisted the 
tyranny of Peisistratus on the one hand, and 
reduced the wild populace to law on the other, 
thereby seeking to unite liberty with authority. 
Thus Solon lived and deserved to live in the 
hearts of the people; but he had another dis- 
tinction: he was a philosopher, the man who 
had begun to think universally. A poet, too, he 



BOOK FIRST. 106 

was, of the gnomic kind. Now this Athenian of 
the aforetime Herodotus brings into the age and 
presence of Croesus, in order to contrast the 
two opposite states of consciousness, the Athe- 
nian and the Asiastic, each giving his view of 
the matter called human life. Our historian, 
accordingly, makes Athens, in the person of her 
great citizen, the bearer of the Greek Idea 
versus the Oriental, long before Marathon and 
Salamis. Such a view, we may well hold, was 
the fruit of his stay at Athens, and forms a kind 
of prehide to his entire History. 

Many indications we have of his travels in the 
present Book. He remained at Delphi quite a 
while and studied its monuments and offerings; 
they were indeed valuable historic documents. 
A stay at Delphi also we have the right to sup- 
pose ; deeply sympathetic he shows himself to be 
with its spirit of which he drank at its fountain- 
head. The result is, a Delphic thread is woven 
throuo^h his whole Historv, from beojinnin": to 
end. He could hardly have obtained so much 
knowledge of the Oracle and its treasures, and 
have been so deeply permeated with its spirit, 
except by a prolonged and loving participation in 
the life of the Delphic town. Here is indeed a 
contrast with Athens which was growing out of 
the oracular and prophetic stage into that of 
the self-conscious reason. But our Historian 
took up both sides into his universal sym- 



106 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

pathy, and gives both in his universal book on 
Hellas. 

Far beyond the bounds of Greece the travels 
of Herodotus extended ; in the present Book we 
have glimpses of his wanderings and investiga- 
tions in Middle Asia, though it is not easy to 
point out the exact line and limit of his journeys. 
The great city Babylon he saw, pondered, and 
compared with the Greek world; it was indeed a 
soul-broadening contrast. The river Araxes in 
the far north he did not see, but has to take the 
report of others in reference to its size and 
character (202). He must have known the 
Persian language, and probably something of 
other Oriental tongues, which he needed in his 
travels and studies. Commentators generally 
suppose our Historian to have been ignorant of 
every language except his native Greek — a sup- 
position wholly without foundation and against 
the reasonable probabilities of the case. 

Accordingly, in the present Book we behold 
Herodotus, first of all, investigating and record- 
ing his home history, that of western Anatolia 
(Asia Minor), in which he places the rise 
of History; then we behold him travel- 
ing to Delphi, perchance consulting the Oracle 
about his contemplated History and about what 
he should do to make his record true and eternal, 
and getting the response to stay and absorb the 
Delphic spirit, which was then the central relig- 



BOOK FIB ST. 107 

ious influence of all Hellas; still further, we 
behold him going to Athens and taking up 
Athenian spirit in its highest Periclean excel- 
lence ; finally, we behold him traveling thousands 
of miles over vast Asiatic tracts to the grreat 
Oriental centers — Babylon, Nineveh, Susa (Per- 
sia), Ecbatana (Media). 

Yet all this is not a mere rambling book of 
travels ; it has a spiritual center round which the 
whole turns in due obedience; thus it becomes in 
the best sense a work of art. 



BOOK SECOND, 

In the preceding Book we saw the develop- 
ment of the Lydiad, or the movement of Lydia 
out of its mythical to its historical period through 
a line of kings ending in Croesus. Then it was 
absorbed into the greater Persiad, or the History 
of Persia, into whose movement all the nations 
of Central and Western Asia have been drawn 
by means of conquest. Such is the Herodotean 
conception of the historic process in the Orient. 
Now we are to see the same general principle 
applied to a new country, Egypt, which is to be 
shown in its geography, in its institutions, and 
in its lines of kings. 

Cyrus, the great hero of the preceding Book, 
we beheld smitten with a tragic destiny at its 
conclusion. But the fate of the nation does not 
(108) 



BOOK SECOND, 109 

depend on the fate of the individual hero ; his- 
tory is more than a drama, it is many dramas; 
the Persian national spirit, of which Cyrus was 
the hio^hest expression, will continue to unfold 
its career after his death, till it also completes its 
cycle of development. Cambyses, son and suc- 
cessor of Cyrus, reaches out for Egypt ; con- 
sequently we are now to have an Egyptiad 
interwoven into this History. 

The most important document pertaining to 
ancient Egypt is this Second Book of Herodotus. 
It is written in a spirit of genuine sympathy, and 
itjmparts to the reader something of the wonder 
and veneration which the historian himself felt 
as he gazed upon that land of marvels. He is 
unconsciously seeking to bring the old and iso- 
lated nation into line with the World's History, 
and to raise to light the points of connection 
between it and the great new movement of the 
time. Egypt is conquered by Persia and so 
becomes a part of the Persian Empire in the 
latter's conflict with Hellas, which is the central 
event of the History of Herodotus, as well as of 
the age. 

There is no doubt that Egypt's place is far 
up toward the head waters of civilization. It 
may not be the primordial fountain, still no 
other land, as far as is known at present, reaches 
beyond it in antiquity. The Nile of History 
has, indeed, its sources hidden, but it flows into 



110 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

light first in Egypt, where it remaius confined in 
a narrow channel for a lons^ distance, till it 
pours into the great Midland Sea which washes 
the shores of so many European peoples. 

Herodotus is a Greek, and he is particularly 
eaijer to find out the relations between his race 
and the Egyptians. He traveled in Egypt prob- 
bably between the years 460-455 B. C, a period 
which reaches from his twenty-fourth to his 
twenty-ninth year. ( See Rawlinson's Herodotus, 
Vol. I., p. 12.) This was the period of the 
revolt of Inarus, when an Athenian army had 
possession of Egypt. Still the Greeks had ob- 
tained a foothold in the land of Nile during the 
reign of Psarametichus, more than two hundred 
years before, and had begun to break down its 
exclusiveness. The same king caused a number 
of Egyptian children to be instructed in the 
Greek tongue, from whom was descended a 
special class, the interpreters. One of these ac- 
companied Herodotus in his visit to the pyramids, 
as cicerone, and read the inscriptions. A hun- 
dred years before the time of our historian, 
Amasis was king of Egypt, who was also very 
friendly to the Greeks. Thus for more than two 
hundred years antecedent to the visit of Herodo- 
tus, the Greek language had a certain currency in 
Eg3^pt, and with it had come Greek ideas, 
mythology, literature, Homer. 

Our young traveler, therefore, saw an Egypt 



BOOK SECOND. Ill 

which was well acquainted with his countrymen. 
Indeed Grecian intercourse with the people of 
the Nile goes back to Homer, who also, specially 
in the Odyssey, spins a thread of connection 
between Hellas and Egypt. On many sides the 
relation was friendly. The Greek was, in the 
time of Herodotus, the strong, beautiful youth 
of the world; the Egyptian was an old man, 
whose time had passed, but who wished, even 
while looking into the setting sun, to impart his 
wisdom to the coming time. We see in this 
Book that there was a double movement, from 
each side, toward a mutual acquaintance and 
adjustment. The Greeks in Egypt sought to 
peer into their own origin through Egyptian his- 
tory ; they translated specially the ancient Gods 
of the valley of the Nile into their own Pantheon, 
and connected themselves and their religion 
with the oldest of nations. On the other hand 
the priests of Egypt, depositories of its ven- 
erable lore, took the attitude of the aged seer 
toward the young man who was starting in 
life, the attitude of the Orient to the Occident, 
as if saying : We made you what you are, 
we gave you your wisdom and your deities ; 
listen, therefore, with reverence.^^ Hence it 
is that the Orient resents with such contempt 
tbe idea that the Occident should send mis- 
onaries to their part of the world to teach 
nem in matters of religion; better reverse the 



112 THE FATHER OF HISTOBT. 

process. So the Orientals think and act to-day ; 
so those old Egyptian priests thought and acted 
toward Herodotus, the young Greek traveler, 
who listened not only with reverence, but with a 
certain degree of faith to their marvelous state- 
ments. Accordingly he will endeavor to link 
together Greece and Egypt; especially he will 
try to connect Greek and Egyptian religion and 
mythology. 

We can also see that even the exclusive, secre- 
tive Egyptian is putting himself in line with 
Universal History, is ready for Herodotus to ap- 
pear and to record the new situation. Such is 
the outcome of Greek influence for several cen- 
turies. The grand connection is brought about in 
this Second Book ; Egypt with its Nile is made 
to pour through the Greek consciousness, which 
reveals it to the world, having been hitherto 
largely a land of mystery, of concealment, of 
darkness. To be sure the historian does not tell 
all he knows; so strong is his sympathy that an 
Egyptian awe steals over him at times and he 
refuses to reveal certain sacred secrets. 

It is characteristic that the first thing of which 
Herodotus speaks in reference to Egypt is its 
claim to antiquity. *' The Egyptians before the 
reign of Psammetichus believed themselves to 
be the most ancient of mankind" (c. 2). 
Mark that this Psammetichus is the king who 
broke down the barriers and let in the Greeks, 



BOOK SECOND. 113 

tvTo centuries before Herodotus. The ruler is 
now an investigator of infantile science. The 
story of the two children reared in a lowly hut 
and suckled by goats, rests on the supposition that 
when these children begin to talk, they will 
utter the first human word, which is here 
declared to be becos. This, the author says, is 
the Phrygian word for bread ; hence the Phry- 
gians are the oldest people. 

Two very different explanations of this word 
becos have been given. The professional philol- 
ogersees in it an Aryan root akin to the English 
bake or even to^a, father. Better would it be 
to regard the root as the child's imitation of the 
bleat of the goat or of the kid when hungry for 
its portion of milk. Romulus, suckled by a she- 
wolf, would probably give a different call for his 
nourishment. 

Herodotus reports that the Egyptians gave up 
their claim of being the most ancient of men 
after this experiment ; if so, they were easily 
satisfied. But Diodorus, writing of Egypt some 
four hundred years after Herodotus, says that the 
people of the Nile valley in his time still main- 
tained that they were the oldest of mankind. 
This is probably the truth of the matter, though 
our historian implies that he received his infor- 
mation from three sets of priests, those at Mem- 
phis, at Heliopolis, and at Thebes. We to-day 
"Save to acknowledge that Egypt's claim to the 

8 



114 THE FA THEE OF HIS TOBY. 



most ancient civilization among men has the 
greatest probability of truth. 

Modern lino^uistic research has sought in various 
ways to connect the Egyptian tongue with the 
leading divisions of human speech, Aryan, 
Semitic, and Turanian, and thus to probe 
down to the question of origin. The results 
as yet are uncertain. A curious point is 
that the language of the hieroglyphics is 
said to show decided Celtic affinities, and 
the Irishman's statement that Irish was the 
man's primordial tongue, spoken first in the 
garden of Eden, may yet be confirmed. The 
general trend of opinion among investigators 
seems to be that the Egyptian language shows 
traces of the primitive tongue spoken before the 
separation of the Aryan and Semitic into two 
great families oi" speech, which would throw 
Egypt far back into a very remote time for its 
beginning, and connect it with Asia. The ques- 
tion, however, whether Egyptian civilization 
came from Asia, or Asiatic civilization came 
from Egypt, remains unanswered. 

Far more profitable than this search for origin 
is the tracing of the Egyptian stream into those 
peoples who succeeded it in the World's History, 
specially the Greek and the Hebrew. The Greek 
connection in its earliest form is unfolded in this 
Second Book of Herodotus, which is now the 
subject of our study. 



BOOK SECOND. 115 

The Historian himself has hinted his diyisi^ift 
of the Book (c. 99) into two parts: his own 
personal account of '« what he saw, thought and 
learned by inquiry/' and the account of the 
Egyptians themselves. The former will, there- 
fore, be of the Present, the latter of the Past, 
though both elements will intermingle in each 
case. 

The first part of the Second Book easily sub- 
divides into two portions. After a kind of In- 
troduction (1-5), there will be an account of 
Physical Egypt with its River (6-34); then the 
author will pass to '* a more extended account '' 
(35) of the country because of its '' wonders and 
its works; " such an account we may in general 
call Spiritual Egypt in contrast with the preceding, 
as it takes up the religion, customs, arts, insti- 
tutions of the land. The relation between the 
two elements (physical and spiritual) is very 
close, probably closer in Egypt than in any 
other country that ever existed. 

The portion devoted to the Past (beginning at 
c. 99) we shall call Historical Egypt, since it 
deals with kings and dynasties that have been, 
and recounts their deeds and works. So much 
for the structure of this Book, as it lay in the 
mind of Herodotus. We shall permit ourselves 
one slight change m it; instead of making two 
subdivisions of the drst part, we shall at once 



116 THE FATHER OF HISTORY, 

cast the whole Book into three main divisions as 
follows: — 

I. Physical Egypt.- 

II. Spiritual Egypt. 

III. Historical Egypt. 

This arrangement (for us, at least) simplifies 
the matter, and sets forth the thought and the 
movement of the Book in a clearer light. 



7. PHYSICAL EGYPT. 

This naturally starts with *« the gift of the 
River," the Delta, for the Delta and the Nile 
are the two positive factors of physical Egypt, in 
the view of Herodotiis (5-34). 

The stream and its alluvion are hedged about 
by seas, by deserts and by barren mountains — 
an environment of desolation, through which the 
river pours a line of green fertility. Egypt 
proper is estimated to have an area of about 
100,000 square miles, of which hardly more than 
one-tenth is cultivable. The country in its best 
days probably contained not more than seven 
millions of inhabitants, all clinging to the 
stream. 

Every bit of Egypt, therefore, worthy of the 
name, is " the gift of the river,'* as the historian 
says. Especially is this the case with the Delta. 
About 100 miles from the sea the Nile forks and 
sends one branch to the right and one to the 
left, which reach the Mediterranean some 300 

(117) 



118 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

miles apart. Besides these two extreme mouths, 
five others are counted between them, two of 
which are artificial. Such is the Delta, filled 
anciently with flourishing cities. 

We see that in antiquity (c. 15) the question 
had arisen, which still gives trouble: To which 
grand division of the globe does Egypt properly 
belong — to Asia or Africa? Geographically it 
is embraced in the latter, but spiritually it is ab- 
solutely distinct ; it connects in history with Asia 
on one side and with Europe on the other. Not 
African surely, nor can we deem it Asiatic; 
Egypt is a peculiar world, *' the gift of the 
river,'* which is the next phenomenon considered 
by the historian. 

The first great mystery connected with the 
Nile, in the eyes of Herodotus, is the fact that it 
rises in summer — from the end of June till 
September, when it is highest — then falls in the^ 
winter* which is the rainy season in Greece and 
in other countries known to our author. We see 
that the circumstance had evoked much specula- 
tion among the Greeks, who were seeking for a 
physical cause; three theories are examined and 
rejected. Then Herodotus gives his own view, 
obscure enough, yet seeming to be about this: 
the Sun is the cause ; being driven from the north 
by the storms of winter, '* he retires to Libya," 
to the south, where he attracts or dries up the 
Nile. But '* when winter grows mild," he returns 



BOOK SECOND. 119 

to the north (Tropic of Cancer), and then ** at- 
tracts water equally from all rivers ; ' ' thus the Nile 
is relieved from his special presence, and begins 
rising. Herein the Sun seems to be controlled 
by the seasons instead of causing them; he is 
conceived as the bright migrating bird of the 
skies flying southward with the approach of 
inclement weather, and returning to the north 
with the spring. 

Closely allied with the preceding problem is 
another, that of the sources of the Nile. Our 
author confesses that they are unknown to him, 
and he clearly holds that they were unknown to 
the Egyptians. He himself went as far as 
Elephantine in order to investigate the subject; 
that city lies on the Nile 700 miles from the sea; 
there he found the African wall which shuts in 
Egypt, and beyond it he could not pene;trate. 
Vague rumors he picks up and tells (c. 28-34 ) ; 
but that whole borderland begins to lapse into 
fable. Still here is the grand fact : the mighty 
river bearing all its fertility comes flowing hither 
out of an unknown world, and lays down at the 
feet of men its gift, which is just this Egyptian 
land. 

As is well known, it is our own age which has 
solved the problem of the sources of the Nile, 
which fact is indeed a typical one of the century. 
The river rises in Equatorial Africa from two 
great lakes called Albert and Victoria Nyanza, 



120 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

which are fed mainly by heavy rains for nine 
months of the year. The Nile on its journey to 
the sea starts from Albert Nyanza about 2,000 
miles from its mouth direct, or 2,500 miles, if 
its windings be included. This is the true Nile 
or the so-called White Nile, which is a perma- 
nent, almost unvarying stream, pushing its vast 
volume of water throuorh an arid desert to the 
Mediterranean. The rise of the Nile is caused 
by its affluents, chief of which is the Bahr-el- 
Azrak or Blue Nile in Abyssinia, and the last of 
which is the Atbara, which empties into it 1100 
miles from its mouth (Sir Samuel Baker). The 
tributaries of the Nile bring the fertilizing soil, 
which is carried by the body of the river into 
Egypt and there deposited. Such are the two 
chief elements of the Nile system. 

We have now before us the main physical fact 
pertaining to the Nile and the Delta. In shape the 
whole was compared by the old navigator Scylax 
to a double-edged batttle-ax with its long handle 
reaching up to Elephantine. But it is far more 
significant to compare Egypt to a human hand at 
the end of the outstretched arm, with the five 
fingers extended, corresponding to the five natural 
mouths in the Delta. That hand is not smiting 
with a battle-ax but is bountifully giving, or 
perchance is spread out for sowing the crop. 
Moreover the forearm is visible for quite a dis- 
tance, but the upper part passes into the invis- 



BOOK SECOND. 121 

ible; the shoulder, the body, the face of that 
mighty form reaching out of the Beyond are un- 
seen, invisible as spirit itself. Verily it is the 
hand of deity, of Father Nile, giving his bless- 
ing to his favored childen of Egypt. The form, 
the situation, the action of the river, all force 
the conception of God, the Giver, Provider, 
beneficent, yet covered with darkness, whose 
hand alone with a little of the arm is visible. No 
wonder that the old historian regards the Egyp- 
tians as the most religious of mortals, being 
driven, first of all men, to make the grand dis- 
tinction between the k5een and the Unseen, the 
Sensible and the Supersensible, and gradually be- 
tween the Finite and the Infinite. So already 
ancient Homer shadows forth this distinction in 
his myth of Proteus. 

Hence Egypt is the real Holy Land, which 
conception passed thence to the Hebrews and 
Arabians. Religion becomes its all-environino* 
element; man is fed directly by the Gods ; even 
the animals, products of the Nile, become sacred. 
Also a sacred writing rises into existence, the 
hieroglyphic; the idea of the Holy Book or Bible 
springs from Egypt and the Nile, and passes to 
other peoples of the Orient, and also to the 
Occident, which has not produced and cannot 
produce a Holy Book of its own. Thus the 
Nile stream is still flowino: thrOuo:h us all. 

Let us note again the fact that to the Egyptian 



122 THE FATIIEB OF HIS TOBY. 

the source of the River was hidden ; the body, 
the face, even a part of the arm were in the 
region of the Unseen. Egypt, therefore, be- 
comes a land of mystery, of dark symbolic cere- 
monies, of the mystical consciousness in general, 
it is the primitive source of the mystery as an 
element of religion. 

The Egyptians lived not only through the 
activity of this hand, but lived in it literally; it 
gave them not only their sustenance, but their 
terrestrial standing-room. Hence there are two 
great gifts of the Nile, the eternal and the tem- 
poral ones, the soil itself and the renewed annual 
deposit, the gift of the ages and the gift of the 
year. The same double character will manifest 
itself in Egyptian life ; even the Gods will show 
an eternal and a phenomenal element. 

Thus man in Egypt was one with the Nile, 
he clung to its banks, he could not be separated 
from it without death. He became exclusive, 
peculiar, self-introverted, secretive. How dif- 
ferent the Greek ! Open, self-reliant, enter- 
prising, he can bring freedom and the secular 
world into existence. Herodotus contrasts the 
Ister (Danube), which is for him the great 
European river, with the Nile; the Ister has no 
secrets, no mystery, being known from its foun- 
tain head to its mouth, lying all the way in the 
sunlight, a type of Europe. 

The hand is not pnly an implement of the body. 



BOOK SECOND, 123 

but is one of the most significant symbols of the 
spirit. The great hand of the Nile feeds the 
Egyptian infant, truly the infant of the World's 
History, who is yet to become a man. These 
primitive children are scattered helpless up and 
down the valley of the River; they are put into 
a marvelous garden, tilled by the unseen hand ; 
a child garden (kindergarden) it may be called, 
first of its kind, and to a certain extent the 
pattern of all succeeding ones, in which the 
primeval man-child learns his earliest and most 
important lesson from his invisible teacher, 
namely that he lives in and through a Divine 
Order. 

The Egyptian, therefore, is led through Nature 
into that which is beyond ; the known, the finite 
is here before him, but it springs directly out of 
an unknown, an infinite. Hence he passes by 
means of the Nile out of the physical into the 
spiritual world, the river itself dividing into two 
parts, the seen and the unseen. For Herodotus 
this division takes place at the border city of 
Elephantine, which he says that he visited. 

We may note again the fact of the exclusive- 
ness of physical Egypt as indicated by nature. 
(1) The total country is inclosed on every side 
by sea and desert, with a narrow gateway connect- 
ing with Asia. (2) The River, inside of Egypt, 
is inclosed in its narrow channel and its delta. 
Thus a double separation from the outer world is 



124 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

given by nature, or a double rampart against 
external powers, (3) Another separation is that 
of the stream of the Nile within itself into its 
pure and permanent body, and its turbid, unclean 
addition of sediment and water; rise and fall of 
the Nile, growth and decline. (4) Then another 
separation of the River into the known and the 
unknown portions. (5) Still further, the Nile 
divides this inner Egypt, its own land, into two 
well-marked parts — Upper and Lower Egypt, or 
the Delta and the River Valley. Thus nature 
dualizes Egypt on many sides, and each one of 
these dualisms leaves its imprint on her spirit, 
individualizes her character among the peoples 
of the world. 

The River overflows not alone for irrigation, 
but also for a deposit of sediment ; it brings not 
simply moisture, but the very soil along with 
itself. It makes a new earth, the land is reborn 
every year, like the season, like Osiris, like the 
Sun to a degree. Thus is the cycle of life sug- 
gested by nature, and enters deeply into Egyptian 
spirit. Moreover, the gift is certain, it never 
fails, though sometimes more and sometimes 
less. The Nile does not forget. No plow is 
needed, it is the plower, too, though man has to 
sow. Only a few times comparatively has the 
Nile stinted his gift to the extent of producing 
a famine. 

In Greece, on the contrary, is the rain-god 



BOOK SECOND, 125 

Zeus, sending his showers for humidity only, not 
sending the soil, which has to be plowed and 
tilled with great care and economy, being in little 
patches here and there amid the rocks. Small 
alluvial valleys are indeed found in Greece, but 
no great Nile Hand reaching out from the Unseen 
God and giving food to His children. 



77. SPIRITUAL EGYPT. 

That which the Egyptian sees to be true of 
the river, with its two halves, visible and in- 
visible, he will make the pattern or transforming 
idea of the whole sense-world. Upon it he will 
found his customs, his institutions, his religion, 
art, literature. 

This twofoldness, the sensible and supersen- 
sible, will be noted everywhere. The secular 
life will be distinct from the religious, and 
overarched by the latter. There will be a 
class, the priests, who will deal with the 
unseen, the mysteries, the Gods, hence Egypt is 
the very home of priestcraft. Not to be con- 
sidered a cunning set of men keeping the people 
in ignorance and superstition ; they had to arise 
in the Nile valley, and the people would have none 
other; these would have driven out any dilFerent 
system, as something foreign to their spirit. 
There will be the veiled image of the Goddess at 
Sais, and the Sphinx with her riddle. The 
(126) 



BOOK SECOND. 127 

priests will know the inner meaning of rites and 
worship, the multitude will cling to the sensuous 
side for dear life ; the latter is the seen Nile, the 
other the unseen. Outer idols, yet inner spirit 
also; the spirit will have its caste. 

On these lines two great influences are to 
move forth from Egypt. Judea will take the 
supersensible element, this pure spirit, and 
break the idol, and flee to its own land throuo:h 
the wilderness. The sensuous Nile is dropped, 
rooted out, destroyed ; Jehovah is the one God, 
eternal as spirit, and so lives to-day and keeps 
his people alive. Such is the Egyptian contri- 
bution to man, being purified by passing through 
th© Semitic soul. 

On the other hand, Greece developed the sense 
side, the finite Nile, kept the idols, but trans- 
figured them into works of art. Polytheism the 
Greek retains ; Egypt is both, monotheistic in 
esoteric doctrine, polytheistic in exoteric or 
popular doctrine. 

A Hebrew document and a Greek document 
give the history of these transitions — the Pen- 
tateuch and this Second Book of Herodotus. 

We observe the same dualism in writing — 
sacred (hieroglyphic) and profane (demotic), 
one for the priests, the other for the people. 
Even in speech too ; some things to be spoken, 
others to remain unspoken, nay unspeakable. 

Deeply significant is it to note how this Egyp- 



128 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

tian characteristic has entered the very soul of 
our historian. He will not tell the secrets, 
which are not to be spoken, for speech has two 
sides, the voiced for the sense bf hearing, and the 
unvoiced for the spirit. Hence he feels the 
Egyptian mystery and preserves silence; he, the 
talkative Greek, receives the impress of the Nile 
also, else indeed he were no good reporter. 
Still, even by his silence, he reveals a phase of 
Egyptian spirit, probably better than by any 
description. 

We can trace from the relation of the Egyp- 
tian to the Nile some of the most important sub- 
jective traits of his religion. He receives 
blessings for which he can give no return — grat- 
itude; he knows not whence these blessings 
come — wonder; he must rely upon them regu- 
larly — trust ; he must conciliate the unseen 
power, that it continue to be friendly — worship 
with its rites, formulas, organization. Depend- 
ence was their trait, with all its allied advantages 
and drawbacks ; Egyptians were children with a 
sweet submission on the one hand; or they might 
be called Nature's beggars, who lived off her 
alms without much effort on their own part, and 
were very importunate in their solicitations, 
spending their lives in prayers and ceremonies 
and attitudes, all invoking their benefactor to 
give and to give again and to give more. An 
excess of religion is this for most minds of the 



BOOK SECOND. 129 

Occident, in which self-reliance rather is the law 
of conduct. 

Only in one place in Egypt were there gym- 
nastic contests, once a year. These were dedi- 
cated to a Greek hero, Perseus, in the city of 
Chemmis. Did he pass here on his way to Ethio- 
pia to relieve Andromeda, the beautiful maiden, 
from the Oriental monster? The fact suofSfests 

Do 

one striking contrast between Hellas and Egypt. 
The Greek believed in a culture of the body 
during life, it too was to be unfolded, to be made 
perfect. But when life left it, it was burnt. 
The Egyptian, 'however, sought to preserve the 
body after death by embalming ; it was not to be 
destroyed by fire, slow or speedy; he trans- 
formed it into a mummy ; even the bodies of 
animals were embalmed and made to endure. 
Thus the Egyptians were more intent upon death 
and the hereafter, the Greeks the reverse. 
Hence the one reproduced the body in the beau- 
tiful statue, the other preserved it in the mummy, 
not beautiful. 

In tracing the rise of mythology, which is a 
rise from nature to spirit, there are certain 
physical facts common to all mythologies. 
There are light and darkness, springing from 
one. source, the sun, which gives the first dual- 
ism of nature, or separation into opposites. 
Then there are heat and cold, the second dualism 
of nature, also caused by the sun and producing 

9 



130 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

the seasons. So we have the daily and the 
yearly dualism of nature, as the original start- 
ing-point of the mythical consciousness of man. 
Universal it is among peoples on the globe and 
relates to man universally. 

Then every people or time has some special 
form of nature which makes its mythology indi- 
vidual. The Egyptian had the phenomenon of 
the Nile, its rise and fall, its fertilizing gift, its 
passage from known to unknown. This will 
specialize its mythology, which rises from 
nature. The God Osiris dies and is born again; 
is entombed, embalmed, yet will return immor- 
tal. The Egyptian mythus will be unlike the 
Greek, which showed the sensuous subordination 
of the sensuous; the Greek mythus put down 
the Orient, which never put itself down. 

So strong was the influence of the physical 
phenomenon of the Nile upon the Egyptian 
mind that the Sun, the main element in other 
mythologies, especially the Ar3^an, is absorbed by 
the Nile. The yearly Sun, with cold and heat 
elsewhere, is supplanted by the rise and fall of 
the Nile. Light and Darkness, or day and 
night, come, with their good and evil ; but these 
have a much stronger suggestion in the Giver of 
fertility, the Nile, than in the Giver of Light. 
Still the Egyptians had their Sun-god (Ra) and 
their Sun-city (Heliopolis). Then there was no 
rainfall, no clouds obscuring the Sun, which 



BOOK SECOND. IBl 

plays such a prominent part in the old Aryan 
mythology as seen in the Vedas. Aryans were 
plowers, but there was very little need of plow- 
ing in Egypt; crops were a gift. Greek clouds 
and rainfall (like the Aryan) play into Greek 
mythology. 

Hence the Nile is the determining source of 
Egyptian mythology and religion (worship and 
rites). Yearly the Sun moves north and south 
with the fall and rise of theNile. East and west are 
opposite to the Nile — hence light and darkness 
contribute not so much to Egyptian mythology. 

That which individualizes Egypt and makes 

the Egyptian man distinctive is the Nile. What 

will be its effect upon the mind observing it, 

livino- with it? Let us trace the movement of 

the River, reflecting itself in the human soul. 

First it brings to consciousness the unknown and 

the known; then it vanishes and returns. Let 

us see the process. ( 1 ) The Nile as unknown — 

yet the Giver, Provider, the good. (2) TheNile 

as known, the gift, the sensuous fact, the finite 

world. (3) The Nile droops, falls, is old age ; it 

vanishes into the sea, it dies like Osiris, and 

is absorbed, losing its individuality as River. 

Hence the lament of the people. (4) The Nile 

returns, is full the next season or cycle, returns 

out of the sea somehow, through the heavens. 

It has to go back to its unseen source and be 

individualized over again. 



132 THE FATHEIt OF HISTORY. 

Such is the grand cycle of the Nile to which 
the Egyptian consciousness adjusts itself and in 
which it finds expression. We cannot say that 
the Nile creates the mind of Egypt, but it is the 
mould into which this mind pours itself and gets 
utterance, especially its mythical utterance, and 
also its religious, in rites and worship. Now a 
mountain utterance, like the Aryan, would be dif- 
ferent. Yet the Ego is present in both cases, nature 
is its vehicle, which it transforms into a symbol. 

Thus, of the cycle of the Nile, there is a small 
segment which is known, and a vast segment 
which is unknown. So nature calls forth the 
corresponding consciousness, it leaves its imprint 
upon the Ego. The Egyptian will pour his life 
into this fact of the Nile ; life is a little fragment 
here and now, rolling out of the land to the sea; 
yet it will return after a long absence. Hence 
the Egyptian has the doctrine of immortality in 
one of its early forms. The Nile produces ani- 
mals as it does man — its life goes over into the 
animal, which is a transformation like that of the 
river. Herein we may behold the hint of the 
doctrine of metempsychosis. Still the shriveled 
body of the Nile remains ; in like fashion man 
must preserve the body dead as mummy, as the 
future bearer of life, quite as the Nile brings 
down life in its body by the addition of sediment 
and more water. The spirit of the Nile calls 
forth the mummy, tomb, labyrinth. 



BOOK SECOND. 133 

It is now known that the Nile divides itself 
into the pure body of water coming from the 
lakes, and the sedimentary waters of its affluents. 
The old Egyptian felt this, indeed saw it, in the 
two Niles of summer and winter, which are really 
the White Nile and the Blue Nile along with 
some other tributaries. Hence the dualism is in 
the water of the stream, with its permanent life- 
portion and the mere passing body. 

Still the Egyptian, being mind, had to tran- 
scend even the Nile. It brought before him 
strongly the seen and the unseen, it split his 
consciousness into the known and unknown. 
But he has to reach over this unknown, grasp it, 
account for it. In other words, the whole Egyp- 
tian spirit shows a striving to know the unknown, 
to image it in the Gods, in the Mythus, in the 
religious ceremonial. The very fact of his say- 
ing "the unknown'' is a kind of knowledge; 
when mind knows its limit, it has begun to trans- 
cend the same. So the spirit and its process 
take the form of the unknown in Egypt. 

The Nile stream flows through all history, it is 
flowing through you and me now. It is of 
course transformed ; it flowed through Judea and 
it flowed through Greece, bringing forth a new 
set of products each time. Now it is flowing 
into the Mississippi, which runs south, as the Nile 
runs north; one with a broad fertile valley, the 
other with a narrow valley, limiting and lim- 



134 THE FATHER OF HIS TOE Y. 

ited ; the one with freedom, the other with re- 
straint; the one determined the civilization of 
its dwellers, the other had its civilization brought 
to it 

It will thus be seen that one great work of 
Egyptian mind was to transform the Nile into a 
vast symbol, in fact, all its manifestations 
became symbolic. Nature was made over into 
the bearer of mind; the physical object thus 
had two meanings, its own and a new one given 
to it by mind. The Nile Hand became the 
Giver, Creator reaching out of the Unseen ; the 
Egyptian God Ptah, whose temple was built by 
Menes, the first king of Egypt, means Hand 
literally; so we can see how the conception of 
this deity arose. Truly it may be said that there 
is no understanding Egyptian spirit without 
understanding the symbolic, and its place in the 
history of culture as well as in the development 
of the individual mind. Egypt is the land of 
the symbol, with its fundamental division of 
itself into the sensible and the supersensible 
manifested also in the division of the Nile. 

There is presupposed in the Nile Valley the 
Ego; whence it came and how it arose is not 
our inquiry. The Egyptian as such did not 
descend Nile from Meroe and bring his civiliza- 
tion, just as little did he come from Asia with 
his civilization. He was made an Egyptian in 
Egypt. 



BOOK SECOND. 135 

Nature always puts its stamp upon the people; 
it gives their particular character, it specializes 
them. Nature puts its limits upon the Ego and 
makes it an Egyptian Ego. Yet the other side 
is present: Nature does not create that primor- 
dial Ego, as far as we at present can ascertain. 

But the Eofo in the limits of Nature must show 
its unlimited, infinite character; it is something 
more than this special form, it is universal. It 
must find itself by always transcending itself. 
The Nile divides the Ego into known and un- 
known, yet the problem of the Ego is just to 
master this unknown and to transcend the 
bounds of the known. The limit put upon it 
by Nature, here by the Nile, gives it an Egyp- 
tian character ; yet the Egyptian must in an 
Egyptian way show the limit-transcending trait 
of his own spirit. Hence all his efforts to 
reach beyond this unknown will be Egyptian in 
form. He must be seen as an Egyptian in 
Egyptian limits trying in Egyptian fashion to 
transcend his Egyptian limits and becoming 
universal, human. 

Let us designate this Egyptian way. The Nile 
is the physical object which reveals man's con- 
sciousness to himself — hence the supreme sym- 
bol. The Nile is man, his life and death, its 
cycle is identified with the human cycle. To be 
sure, it is something different, namely a natural 
object ; but through its cycle and through his 



136 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

observing it completely the Egyptian finds it in 
himself and so becomes aware not only of it but 
also of himself. Thus through the Nile he 
begins to be self-conscious. 

Still further, this Nile, being regarded as a 
man, is yet something far more than an individ- 
ual man, greater, mightier; nay, it is himself as 
universal, it is God. For he is the finite man, 
corresponding to this finite Nile, product of the 
same; yet the river is the unknown or infinite 
Nile too, which is Osiris, the colossal man of the 
world, who also is born, dies and returns. This 
is the second division of the Nile; note again the 
suggestion in the physical fact that the Blue Nile 
is transitory, and the White Nile permanent. 

The Egyptian first identifies the Nile with him- 
self and so becomes self-conscious ; secondly, 
this Nile-man he projects out of himself, and 
gets conscious of God. So the self-conscious- 
ness and the God-consciousness both arise to the 
Egyptian through the Nile. 

Zeus, the rain-God, sends the showers upon 
the earth from the sky, hence, is a sky-God, 
light, clear, when the clouds are gone. But the 
Nile is a hidden God, unknown, yet terrestrial. 
Light plays a secondary part in Egyptian Relig- 
ion and Mythology, as compared with the Persian, 
Greek, or Vedic. 



III. HISTORICAL EGYPT, 

With chapter 99 begins a new section of this 
Second Book, which tells of some of the kings 
of Eo-ypt, as well as their works and actions. 
Our author marks the transition with decided 
emphasis: "Hitherto I have given what 1 per- 
sonally saw, thought, and learned by inquiry; 
henceforth I shall give the account of the Egyp- 
tians, adding certain things which came under 
my own eyes." Moreover, we also learn that 
the priests were his informants, those who were 
the depositories of Egypt's ancient lore, and who 
laro-elv lived in her antiquity. This fact indi- 
cates an important spiritual trait of theirs, 
which will play a part in the forthcoming 

history. 

How shall the reader, seeking to grasp the 
essence of the matter, regard this line of Egyp- 
tian kings? Herodotus does not pretend to give 
the names of them all ; it is clear that he makes 
a selection. But what is his principle of selec- 
tion^ Unless they made '* a showing of works " 

(137) 



138 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

by erecting some great monument, or performed 
*' something brilliant " in the way of exploits 
(101), the historian drops their names, casting 
them all at one throw into the sea of oblivion. 

This list of Herodotus is, therefore, not so much 
a list of kingfs as a list of £:i"eat deeds ; a kino^ who 
does nothing worthy of kingship is no better than 
a common man. The mighty fact which the his- 
torian saw in Egypt was the stupendous works 
of aforetime; how did they get to be? A chaos 
of names, numbers, facts, fancies, were tumbled 
out before him; he starts to arranging them as 
best he can, according to his fundamental con- 
ception of historic order. 

This conception, as we have already seen, is 
twofold: cyclical and progressive. Herodotus 
had deeply implanted in his spirit the idea of a 
cycle both in human affairs and in human con- 
duct. It lay in the Greek consciousness from 
the beginning ; Homer has it, and the poets of 
the Trojan War are, as a whole, termed 
cyclical; the Attic tragedians apply it toman's 
deed, and Herodotus applies it to History in his 
thought of Nemesis. 

The Egyptians also had the cycle as physical 
in the yearly return of the Nile, and in the 
return of the soul to its former habitation. But 
the Greeks conceived the cycle as spiritual, and 
separated it from its physical substrate, wherein 
lies their advance upon the Egyptians, 



BOOK SECOND. 139 

Now Herodotus will apply the idea of the 
cycle to the list of kings, so that each name will 
stand for something in the movement of Egyp- 
tian civilization ; if not for something important 
always, at least for a good story, since that 
barren inventory of royal names is death to the 
sprightly Greek, though it may be dear to an 
Egyptian priest. Then another principle comes 
into play: the idea of progress, which also lies 
deep in the spirit of our historian. The cycle 
does not move merely back to its beginning and 
so keep on repeating itself in an everlasting 
routine, but it also moves forward, it has devel- 
opment, progress; it begins the new age laden 
with all the treasures of the old, and ad- 
vances toward its goal by alvvays coming back to 
itself. 

Such are the two elements deeply underlying 
the historic conception of Herodotus, which he 
will apply, indeed cannot help applying, more or 
less unconsciously, to Egyptian history. We 
shall follow him on these lines, and seek to 
rnake them more prominent and distinct, which 
is possible chiefly through the fact that we can 
look back at him through more than twenty- 
three centuries, and see the complete unfolding 
of that which he only saw in the germ. 

I. The first cycle. This presents to us the 
movement of old Egypt, after the rule of the 
Gods, which rule Herodotus expressly leaves 



140 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

out. The land of the Nile organizes itself inter- 
nally first then it bursts its bounds and rushes 
forth to conquest, which embraces quite the whole 
Orient; thereby it comes in contact with the 
Occident, the new world, represented by the 
Greeks. The three stages of this cycle may be 
designated by the three leading kings, though 
others are mentioned. 

1. Menes, Such is the name of the first king 
of Egypt, imparted to Herodotus by the priests, 
and confirmed generally by succeeding authors 
and by the monuments. This name has surpris- 
ing analogies among many peoples of the globe, 
being given to some early king, law-giver or 
God — the Lydian Manes, the Greek Minos, the 
Hindoo Menu, the Teutonic Mannus, to which 
list we may add the English word man. The 
Egyptian Menes does indeed the first work of 
man in the Nile valley in furthering a civilized 
order. 

The prime fact of his career is that he built 
the capital Memphis in the right spot to unite 
the two parts of Egypt, upper and lower, which 
nature has made so difi'erent, and which have a 
tendency to separate. The one a long strip, the 
other a triangular field, the one scattered, the 
other concentrated, they will certainly be always 
in danger of going asunder. Memphis, built at 
the apex of the Delta, is by its position the uni- 
fier. So we catch the idea of Menes in his first 



BOOK SECOND, Ul 

work, which makes Egypt one nation, uniting 
the hand to the arm of the Nile Valley. 

Moreover he turned the Nile by an embank- 
ment, and made it flow around the new city, 
excavating also a lake which was situated to the 
north and the west of Memphis. Thus the capi- 
tal was surrounded by water, and lay on an 
artificial island. All this must have been the 
work of a great engineer and builder; he han- 
dles already the mighty River, bending it to his 
purpose; he erects a city in its former channel, 
and encircles the same with water, for protec- 
tion against the enemy. Menes already shows 
the architectonic spirit of Egypt. 

Herodotus states also that this king built the 
vast temple of Vulcan, who was the Egyptian 
God Ptah, the divine architect, maker of the 
universe. Him the Greeks call the artificer, 
or demiurge, the true deity of the Egyptian 
mind, which chiefly uttered itself in building; 
true patron deity also of Menes whom we have 
already seen as builder. Doubtless from the 
priests of this temple our historian derived the 
information, which he has here given to us. 
How old Egypt then was, let us ponder : be- 
tween the reader reading these words at the end 
of the 19th century and Herodotus listening 
to the priests in the temple of Ptah, lie some 
twenty-three centuries and a half; but between 
Herodotus and Menes lies a greater length of 



142 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

time, according to the reckoning of most Egyp- 
tologists. 

Now follows a curious passage of our historian : 
*' After this king the priests read me from a hook 
the names of 330 other kings," whose reigns 
had occupied as many generations ; 330 genera- 
tions would fill 11,000 years. It is manifest that 
Herodotus was puzzled much by these figures. 
Moreover the list was a very barren one, only 
two of the names are deemed worthy of mention. 
One is that of a woman who is evidently noted 
down because she was a woman and not a man, 
our historian being quite partial to queens 
throughout his history. The other name is that 
of Moeris, also an engineer and builder, and thus 
a repetition of Menes, inasmuch as he too dug a 
lake and built a portal to the temple of Ptah, as 
well as some pyramids. The reigns of these two 
monarchs, Menes and Moeris, lay many hundreds 
of years apart; indeed, if we accept the chronol- 
ogy of Dr. Brugsch, and place the reign of 
Menes at 4455 B. C, the two kings will be sepa- 
rated by more than 3000 years. But Egyptian 
chronology is a very uncertain thing ; no wonder 
the Father of History held aloof from it as soon 
as he heard it from those priests. Still here are 
the monuments, here are the antiquities, which 
must be accounted for ; accordingly they are 
arranged in groups which show the movement of 
Egyptian history, and are labeled with the name 
of typical kings. 



BOOK SECOND. 143 

Menes, therefore, may well stand for the inner 
development of Egypt, and its unification into 
one people. His is the spirit of construction; 
he built cities and great public works, he also 
built the nation. He lasted much longer than 
his life, we have to think ; he represents an 
epoch or an elenjent which enters into Egyptian 
civilization. The works of many kings and many 
ages may be stamped with his label; as, indeed, 
the mythical spirit has a tendency to cluster all 
the "Treat works and deeds of an era around some 
one great name. 

2. Sesostris. Egypt having been unified 
within and having reached a high stage of inner 
development, begins to move outward and to 
assert herself in the rest of the world. She 
subjects other peoples, she goes forth beyond 
her own bounds which have become too small 
for her spirit, and marks out for herself new 
limits on the globe. She cannot remain cooped 
up in the valley of the Nile, she breaks her 
Egyptian shell and marches mightily forth to 
conquest. 

This movement from internal development to 
external conquest is connected with the name of 
Sesostris. Though the Egyptians were hardly 
a seafaring people, this king gathered ships of 
war on the Eed Sea, and sought to conquer by 
means of a navy — a plan which probably did 
not succeed. Then he collected a vast army and 



144 THE FATHER OF BISTOBY. 

traversed the continent, reaching even Thrace 
and Scythia on the North and extending his 
sway to the Ethiopians on the Sonth. Concern- 
ing his conquests eastward no statement is 
given by our historian. It is manifest, how- 
ever, that Sesostris is conceived as push- 
ing out the arms of Egypt quite to the 
limits of the then known world ; he ran up to 
the rim of the desert and of savagery which 
surrounded the more civilized portion of man- 
kind. This rim we shall see to be a very im- 
portant element in the historic conception of 
Herodotus. 

Such was the culmination of the national 
spirit of Egypt, the period of its greatest 
power and glory. It is now generally acknowl- 
that the military exploits of several of the most 
warlike Egyptian monarchs are ascribed to 
Sesostris. The original Sesostris is supposed to 
be King Osirtasen I. of the Twelfth Dynasty 
(B. C. 2080, according to Mr. Stuart Poole, but 
B. C. 3064 according to M. Lenormant). The 
fact is that Sesostris was the typical Egyptian 
conqueror, standing for all of them, and repre- 
senting the spirit of conquest. As already 
stated in the case of Menes, the people concen- 
trate all the great deeds and characters of an 
epoch or of a class into one personality. The 
people are mythical in spirit and must have the 
all-embracing hero. Our historian sympathizes 



BOOK SECOND. 145. 

with this popular trait, he can do nothing with a 
Ion": chronological list of kinoes. 

Such, then, is the main fact of Sesostris — 
external conquest- But other points are noted. 
Very naturally his absence from home caused 
internal trouble ; his brother conspired against 
him — which resulted in a terrible domestic 
tragedy. The prisoners whom he brought from 
foreign lands he compelled to dig canals; with 
the name of Sesostris is connected the canaliza- 
tion of Egypt. His name is also connected 
with the land tenure of the Nile valley ; ** he made 
a division of the soil among all Egyptians, 
giving a square plot of ground to each one" 
(109); that is, the individual ownership of 
property is ascribed to him. Also he was a 
builder and a patron of sculpture. 

The Egyptian, however, was no organizer of 
conquest, such as was the Persian, notably 
Darius. Booty and captives were brought back 
from conquered lands, but there never was 
probably a vast consolidated Egyptian Empire. 
The greatest of Egyptian conquerors is now 
known by the name of Thothmes III. (eighteenth 
dynasty, 1700-1600 B. C), who seems to have 
overrun all Western Asia. But he, too, had 
quite vanished into the name of Sesostris when 
Herodotus visited Egypt twelve centuries after 
his time. The one represented all ; in the royal 
list of Herodotus there is no other conqueror. 

10 



146 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Sesostris is succeeded by a son who evidently 
was not like his father. A story is told of him 
and then he is dismissed. The military epoch is 
past; just through her wars, Egypt is brought in 
contact with other nations. Sesostris is the 
name which represents Egypt as breaking over 
her ancient limits, becoming universal, uniting 
with Asiatic nations, and sharing in the move- 
ment of the World's History. Next comes her 
relation to Europe, the new, continent of that 
time, with its new spirit represented by Greece. 
Now to the Greek mind the grand conflict between 
Orient and Occident was begun on the plains of 
Troy, and was sung of by Homer. Accordingly 
our historian introduces an Egyptian king who 
lived in the time of the Trojan War, and who is 
to show his attitude toward that conflict, as well 
as towards Homer and Helen. 

3. Proteus. The name is Greek and is un- 
doubtedly derived from the Odyssey, which 
represents the sea-god Proteus as frequenting 
the island of Pharos along the coast of Egypt. 
The mythus again takes him up, but places him 
now upon the Egyptian throne, from which he is 
to utter his decision in the famous case of Helen 
and Paris. 

The land of the Nile was known to Homer. 
The Iliad, in an oft-cited passage, speaks of the 
hundred gates of Egyptian Thebes, and the 
Odyssey draws Egypt into the stream of its action, 



BOOK SECOND. 1 47 

inasmuch as Meneiaus and Helen are borne to 
Egypt on their return home from Troy. In fact, 
the old Greek poet mythologizes Egyptian spirit 
into the form of the sea-god Proteus, who hints 
the manifold appearance of the sense-world, yet 
also the essence therein; those transformations 
of Proteus in the Odyssey are the outward shows 
of things, while there is underneath them all one 
abiding substance, which is the true form of the 
god, and which Meneiaus is at last to grasp 
and make talk. (See author's Commentary 
on Homer's Odyssey, Book IV.) So we have 
seen the Nile breaking forth into many shapes 
of nature — - animal, plant, man — yet there 
is the one principle under all its manifesta- 
tions. 

Now Meneiaus, as a Greek, has to solve the 
Egyptian problem before he can get home to 
Greece with his Helen. He must in his way 
master the dualism between sense and spirit, 
between known and unknown. His way is the 
mythical, Homer is a natural mythologist, all the 
movements of his own spirit and of the World's 
History belonging to his time he transforms into 
a Mythus. Thus he has done with Egypt in the 
story of Proteus. Also in the second part of 
the Odyssey (the, last twelve Books) Egypt 
appears in the background repeatedly. Here, 
then, we see the first traces of intercourse be- 
tween Greece and Egypt, long before the time of 



148 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

Psammetichus and Amasis, who took Greeks into 
their service. 

Herodotus says that Homer lived 400 years 
** before my time," and there is no doubt that the 
lonians and Carians from the coast of Asia 
Minor near Troy, and from the islands of the 
Egeaq, had brought to Egypt the knowledge of 
Homer, and of the Trojan struggle. The Egyp- 
tian priests, therefore, had known of the great 
Greek epics for 200 years before Herodotus, 
and had transformed them according to the 
Egyptian idea, which transformation we are now 
to hear. 

In the first place, these priests report that 
Paris and Helen were driven by contrary winds 
to Egypt, where the king, Proteus, learning of 
the wrong, detained Helen. Then the Greeks 
make the expedition to Troy, capture the city, 
but find no Helen. Menelaus goes to Egypt, 
where he recovers his wife and treasures, and, 
requiting evil for good, does a great wrong to 
the Egyptians, for which he is driven away. 

Such is the Tale of Troy Egyptianized. The 
sack of the Trojan city is for nothing, the great 
conflict between Orient and Occident has no 
meaning. Helen is reall}^ in Egypt, not in Troy ; 
Proteus is the moral hero, and surrenders her to 
her rightful lord without a fight ; he does not 
care for the ideal Greek beauty, nor does Egypt. 
Finally the wicked deed is done by the Greek 



BOOK SECOND. 149 

chieftain, who is for his conduct driven out of 
Egypt. 

Such is, then, the Egyptian Iliad. The priests 
take Helen away from Paris, and keep her and 
restore her, according to justice, abolishing the 
Trojan War, or the great Greek movement, 
which gives the supreme picture of Hellenic 
spirit in the heroic age, and indeed for all time. 
Still we should note that Egypt recognizes Greece 
in restoring Helen. 

The historian in the main agrees with the 
Egyptian view. Already we have seen him 
in a kind of moral protest against the Trojan 
legend. The same protest was common at 
Athens in his time, and was specially voiced by 
Euripides. Our author indeed becomes quite 
dramatic in this part, and employs speeches and 
dialogue; he catches some of the Homeric 
vividness in speaking of Homer. 

Naturally the question comes up; Who made 
the story? It is manifestly a product of Greek 
and Egyptian combined; the myth-making 
spirit could not help working over the old legend 
and adjusting it to the new circumstances. 
Homer was probably an Ionic Greek and sang 
his strains on the coast of Asia Minor and 
among the isles of the Aegean. From the same 
quarter came later those Ionic mercenaries who 
were given a foothold in Egypt by King Psam- 
metichus and King Amasis. We can still im- 



150 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY, 

agine those Ionic soldiers chanting the measures 
of their great poet in their camp alongside the 
Nile, and gradually bringing him and his theme 
to the knowledge of the priests. The inter- 
preters, sprung of both nationalities, must also 
have united the characteristics of both, and have 
helped to bring about a spiritual acquaintance 
between the two peoples. Hence arose a Greco- 
Egyptian Mythus, a thread of which we find 
running through this Second Book of Herodotus 
and culminatino; in the legend of Proteus. 

Thus the Homeric poems, the earliest and 
greatest Greek book, are interwoven into 
Egyptian history. It is true that there never 
was such an Egyptian King as Proteus, his name 
has not been found on the monuments ; still 
Greek influence, even Homer, is entering Egypt, 
just as Egyptian influence is entering Greece, as 
celebrated in many a legend. Greece is the next 
heir of Egypt in the World's History ; we shall 
henceforth see the Egyptian world slowly van- 
ishing into the Grecian, till the Ptolemies, 
Greek conquerors and kings possess and rule 
the valley of the Nile. 

So we may affirm that Herodotus, in this 
Mythus of Proteus, is truer to the spirit of history 
than the monuments, which are mute on this 
subject of Greek influence, for the priests prob- 
ably would not acknowledge it. Yet the Greco- 
Egyptian bridge on which the World-Spirit 



BOOK SECOND. 1^1 

travels out of Egypt and the Orient into 
Hellas and the Occident, is being rapidly con- 
structed. 

But the Homeric mythical connection is not the 
only one in Greek story. There is the tale of 
Oedipus who guesses the sphinx-riddle, being 
thus the Greek intelligence which solves the 
Eiryptian problem. There is the Minotaur, 
half man and half bull, an Egyptian shape of a 
God, guarding the Cretan Labyrinth, also derived 
from Egypt; this Minotaur is slain by a Greek 
hero, Theseus, and the Labyrinth is threaded. 
So Perseus another Greek hero frees the beau- 
tiful Andromeda from an Oriental monster; 
Bellerophon also puts down the Chimaera, the 
commingled animal shape of the East. And 
Zeus, disguised in the form of a bull, and appear- 
ing to fair Europa, expresses a Greco-Egyptian 
mythical relation. 

Thus our historian, seeking to set forth not 
merely certain deeds done, but to give the history 
of a total consciousness, cannot leave out the 
mythical element, if he is faithful to his call. 
For the earliest form in which history expresses 
itself is the mythus. Especially the imaginative 
Greek spirit, receiving from and giving to the 
Orient, uttered itself wholly in a mythical form 
at first, and partially so to the last. 

Such is an outline of the first cycle of Egyp- 
tian History as conceived by Herodotus, not 



152 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

altogether consciously and clearly, but with a 
Greek poetic instinct which compels him to set 
in some kind of order the chaotic mass of names 
and events before him. In Menes is the idea of 
an internal unfolding into a nation, the rise of that 
individual people called Egyptian. In Sesos- 
tris we see the same people expanding beyond 
their national limits and taking up into them- 
selves other nations by conquest, especially 
Asiatic, Oriental. In Proteus we observe that 
they are brushing against Europe, they have 
met the Greeks, their future masters, who are 
their successors in the grand world-historical 
movement from Orient to Occident. As yet, 
however, this Greek element is but a secret 
influence entering the Egyptian soul, not recog- 
nized by the Egyptian, but distinctly seen and 
indicated by the Greek historian looking back- 
ward in time. 

Rliampsinitus . As a kind of pendant to the 
Egyptian transformation of Homer, we next are 
treated to a wholly different sort of tale, which 
is usually called the Treasure of Rhampsinitus. 
It belongs to the same species as the well-known 
Master Thief, and has its counterpart in folk- 
tales of all peoples, which have often in them a 
strain of glorification for the man of cunning. 
The Odyssey is not altogether exempt from such 
a tendency. Still the present tale is on the 
whole in strong contrast with the Homeric tale 



BOOK SECOND, 153 

of Helen, in which the stolen is restored, and 
the arch-thief along with his people receive 
punishment. At present, however, the robber 
is the hero, and is successful in all that he under- 
takes. It has a decided touch of the Arabian 
Nights, and as the Arabians were neighbors to 
Egypt and always in close communication with 
it, we may here find an early edition of an 
Arabian tale transferred to Egyptian soil. Cer- 
tainly it is, as here told, more Oriental than 
Greek, though Herodotus may have derived it 
from his Greek guide. 

The general trend of the story is that author- 
ity is foiled at every point by cunning, and has 
to compromise with the latter, else it will steal 
all the State's treasures. Thus the tale hints a 
perennial condition of things ; old Egypt had the 
same difficulty as modern Chicago. How can 
the social order get the man of intellectual keen- 
ness on its side? Observe that the king gives to 
the arch-thief his own daughter, and thus secures 
himself. The skillful thief (boodler we some- 
times call him now) knows the secret stone of 
the treasure house, and pulls it out ; then he 
enters and helps himself. Somehow the king, 
(our Law), cannot catch him; nay, he often 
makes his own terms with the Law-giving power 
(Legislature). So we can well have our mod- 
ernized edition of this old folk-tale of the 
Treasure of E-bampsinitus, inasmuch the material 



154 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

of it is eternal, and may take on various forms 
according to nation, custom, and environment. 

II. The Second Cycle. The previous cycle 
showed Egypt in its greatness ; it developed to 
its fullness, it broke forth from its bounds and 
imposed its influence upon foreigners, but foreign 
influence has begun to return upon it and to de- 
termine its character. Herewith takes place an 
inner scission ; the two tendencies, domestic and 
foreign, meet upon Egyptian soil; there result 
civil strife, war, inner disruption. Egypt is 
passing out of its exclusive, isolated, individual 
condition, and is being slowly absorbed into the 
greater movement of the World's History; but 
it has first to be all broken to pieces, its refrac- 
tory spirit of isolation, its pride must be crushed 
for a thousand years. 

Many are the phases of this inner trouble, but 
the chief conflict lay between king and priest- 
hood, the secular and the religious elements, or, 
as we say, between State and Church. Medieval 
Europe went through a corresponding transition 
in the strife between the royal and the papal 
power. The priesthood sought to keep the 
country apart, exclusive, for itself, to hold it 
forever under the might of sacerdotalism. But 
there was a national movement in the land, or 
perchance a world-historical trend, which was 
bent upon breaking those inner bonds of the 
priesthood. 



BOOK SECOND. 155 

It is true that the history of Herodotus does 
not in so many words make the above statements, 
but it gives the facts and the reigns in such an 
order that the thought comes out plain to the 
attentive reader. This movement has its three 
stages. 

1, The pyramid-builders. Concerning these 
monarchs the report of the priests to Herodotus 
was very unfavorable. The first one, Cheops, 
'* shut up all the temples and forbade sacrifices 
to the Gods," and then he *' made all the Egyp- 
tians work for himself " in building his pyramid, 
which altogether took twenty years. Another 
tale of infamy is heaped upon this Cheops in 
regard to the degradation of bis own daughter. 
He was succeeded by his brother, Chephren, of 
like character, who also built a great pyramid. 
The two brothers reigned 106 years, during 
which Egypt suffered all sorts of calamities, and 
** the temples were never opened." So we seem 
to catch a decided note of priestly hatred : '' the 
Egyptians are not willing to mention their names, 
through hate of them," 

Herein we certainly have to read the strong 
antagonism between king and priest, which ex- 
presses itself in the building of the pyramids 
versus the closing of the temples. But why 
should the priests develop such an opposition to 
the pyramid ? It was the tomb of the king^ to 
be built far greater than the abode of the God, 



156 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

home of the priests. It probably indicates also 
a new religious direction, it is a tremendous 
struggle to build immortality in stone. 

The pyramid seems a grand means of protec- 
tion, a fortress raised against Time itself, in 
which fortress the body of the monarch is laid. 
The people grind out their life in erecting it; do 
they have no share, no spiritual participation, in 
the pyramid? I believe they do, it is their 
symbol too, in it they meet the negative power 
of Time, the all-devouring ; they give Time this 
huge stone which he cannot digest. The Egyp- 
tian is thus trying to transcend the power of 
Time, not through mind, but through matter; 
by means of a temporal fortress he will shut out 
the temporal; by means of the sensible he will 
reach the supersensible. Desperate was the 
struggle ; by the aid of their hands they wrought 
for salvation ; they had to build something im- 
mortal here and now. The p3"ramid is an 
Egyptian document of immortality, a longing to 
last forever, an eternal sigh in stone for eternity. 

I believe, therefore, that the pyramids express 
the consciousness of the Egyptian people at a 
certain stage of their national life. Not mere 
objects of tyranny; no absolute monarch could 
have erected them without the support of the 
people, by his mere arbitrary fiat. They express 
the overpowering feeling for immortality, the 
people's, not alone the king's. 



BOOK SECOND. 157 

But wherefore the antagonism of the priests? 
Very difficult to tell with exactness; still we do 
know that org^anized sacerdotalism is usually 
opposed to any new doctrine. The pyramid was 
certainly religious in origin; it was a kind of 
temple too, as against the»old kind of temple. 
If we were to hazard a conjecture, it would be that 
the old reliction had become too sensuous; the 
religion of the pyramids puts new stress upon the 
supersensible, the immortal. For the overwhelm- 
ing effect of the pyramids lies in the fact that 
they seek to master in a direct grapple the very 
condition of the sense- world, namely Space and 
Time, by their two supreme characteristics, colos- 
sality and durability. The body lay mummified 
in the pyramid, but that was not enough; it was 
given a new body of stone of vast proportions, 
taking up Space into itself, and a new body of 
granite for the most part, which would defy 
Time. I cannot help regarding these pyramids 
built so impressively and with so much sincerity 
as monuments of a great relisfious Reformation 
which, like some other Reformations that might 
be mentioned, has remained in bad odor with the 
priests, or with a class thereof. So Cheops and 
Cephrenes, builders of the greatest monuments 
of Egypt and of Time, have been damned. 

When the third pyramid-builder, Mycerinus, 
appears, it is plain that a reaction is setting in, 
or a compromise is taking place. Though the 



158 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

son of Cheops, he '* opened the temples again, 
and permitted the people to return to their 
sacrifices and employments; " also he was just 
in his decisions. Hence he is the most highly 
praised of all the kings that ever ruled in Egypt. 
Evidently he reconciled the opposing sides, still 
he built his pyramid too, though it was much 
smaller than either of the others. Thus the two 
diverse elements of faith began to get along 
together. It should be noted that the pyramids 
are not far from Memphis where was the great 
temple of Vulcan (Ptah). So they stood in 
rivalry. 

After Mycerinus, the third pyramid builder, 
comes Asychis, who not only opened the temple 
of Vulcan (Ptah), but built a large and beautiful 
addition to it, a portico ; manifestly there is a 
religious reaction. Still he too built a pyramid, 
he did not wholly abandon the new movement, 
though his pyramid was of brick, and his portico 
of the finest stone and workmanship. Moreover, 
can we not see that the tomb is becoming some- 
what less sacred by the fact that the law can 
seize it for the benefit of the creditor? A living 
civil relation has become paramount to the 
sepulchre. So we may interpret this fact in con- 
nection with the new movement. 

The next king: is called the blind kino^, whose 
rei^n stands for internal trouble, and external 
interference. The Ethiopians enter and rule 



BOOK SECOND, 159 

Egypt which once ruled Ethiopia; a change 
which means decline, dissension, weakness. 
The foreign king at last left Egypt voluntarily 
on account of a dream, possibly the result of 
the priests working upon his superstition. At 
any rate the sacerdotal order gets the benefit of 
his withdrawal, since soon we find one of their 
order in possession of the throne. 

2. The Priest-king , He doubtless represents 
the extreme of the reaction against the pyramid- 
builders, being a priest of Vulcan (of Ptah), 
whose temple we have already noted at Memphis, 
the rallying point against the pyramids. He 
''despised the military class," as not needing 
their services, thinking to do all now by a divine 
miracle, of which the flight of the Ethiopians is 
an example, and still more the undoing of the 
Assvrians under Sennacherib, throuo^h the field 
mice gnawing the bowstrings of their archers. 
In token of which miracle a statue of this king 
with a mouse on his hand stands in the temple of 
of Ptah (Vulcan) bearing the inscription " Who- 
ever looks on me, let him revere the Gods." 
In all of which one cannot help feeling the 
sacerdotal influence. 

Our historian now takes the opportunity of 
dilating upon theological topics, fit subject for a 
priestly reign. First is the idea of a great 
antiquity, the historic descent of the priesthood, 
counting in one case 345 generations — more 



160 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

than 11,000 years — a kind of apostolic descent 
and transmission, here from father to son. 
That which was ancient was holy to the Egyp- 
tian ; as we go backward in Time, we come 
nearer to the Gods, who are always first. Hence 
the priesthood were the conservators of the old, 
this is the ground probably of their difference 
with the pyramid builders. 

Another claim is that in these 11,000 years 
and more, no God has assumed the form of a 
man. The Greek Hecataeus held that he, six- 
teen generations back, was derived from a 
God; the Egyptian priest Pyromis traced his 
genealogy 345 generations back without any 
God, which was his rebuttal of Hecataeus. 
The Greek has the idea strongly of divine 
sonship in many cases; the Egyptian and the 
Oriental consciousness generally reject it stoutly, 
hence they have not become Christian. So the 
old Egyptian would not allow men to be born of 
a God, in strong contrast with the Greek. 

In the third place, Herodotus undertakes in a 
short account to translate the Egyptian Pantheon 
into the Greek one. It is indeed a difficult task. 
The chief mythus of Egypt, that of Osiris, 
Typhon (Seth), and Horus will not easily fit into 
any Greek account of Greek Gods — Osiris here 
being called Bacchus and Horus Apollo. Still 
further, the most recent Greek Gods are Pan, 
Hercules and Bacchus; but in Egypt Pan is 



BOOK SECOND. 161 

among the oldest Gods, and Hercules is in the 
second class; Bacchus, though among the new- 
est Gods, goes back 15,000 years from the time 
of Amasis. All these Gods being new in Greece 
were transferred from Egypt to Hellas, '* and so 
the Egyptians themselves relate;" they are the 
old parents of the Greeks. 

It is manifest that the Egyptian priests were 
in the time of Herodotus making the attempt to 
connect their Gods with the Greek ones, claim- 
ing antiquity and even ancestry. The. prestige 
of age they had, and our historian accepts it and 
reverences it. One other point may be men- 
tioned, also connected with religion (142); the 
rising and the setting Sun changed places four 
times in these 11,000 years, which were reck- 
oned to the reign of this priest-king, Sethon. 
Three-thousand years was the period of trans- 
migration, which the Sun also measured, as it 
does the cycle of daily life. 

It is evident that this priest-king gave up the 
defense of Egypt through its soldier class; the 
result is that after his reign the country fell to 
pieces. No less than twelve kings are ruling at 
once. So the priest governing the State destroys 
it, sacerdotalism has ever been destructive of the 
political element of a land. The former unity 
of Egypt is disrupted. 

Still this dodecarchy, evidently a kind of con- 
federacy, seeks to establish and perpetuate itself. 

11 



162 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Friendship, treaties, interraarriages — such are 
some of the means of union, but the chief is the 
construction of the Labyrinth. It is claimed 
that these kings built the Labyrinth with twelve 
courts, three thousand rooms, one-half above 
ground and one-half below ground. So the dual- 
ism again shows itself, the here and the beyond, 
the known and the hidden. It contains the 
tombs of the kings who built it and of the sacred 
crocodiles. 

3. Psammetichus and Amasis. The return to 
unity isnow the movement ; one king, Psamme- 
tichus, suppresses the division and unites Egypt 
again. But he does so by the aid of foreigners, 
who have already been reacting upon the land of 
the Nile from the West. Some lonians and Car- 
ians from the coast of Asia Minor and from the 
Greek Islands of the Aegaean are thrown upon 
Egypt by stress of weather ; these are the men 
of fate for the Egyptian people, inasmuch as they 
help Psammetichus gain the throne and become 
its chief upholders. This king, accordingly, gives 
the Greeks a foothold in Egypt, from which they 
have not been dislodged to this day. He assigned 
to them lands called *' the Camps," through 
which flowed a branch of the Nile. Note this 
other important fact: he caused Egyptian 
children to be trained in the Greek tongue, who 
became the interpreters. Also the children of 
these Greeks must have spoken both languages. 



BOOK SECOND. 163 

Psammetichus did not neglect the Egyptian 
and his religion. He too constructed a portico to 
Vulcan's temple facing southward, and built a 
court for Apis. The religious war is evidently at 
an end, the secular ruler is restored. But the 
great new thing is that Egypt is becoming Hel- 
lenized. It has a body of interpreters, who inter- 
pret Greek poetry and thought to Egypt, and 
Egypt to travelers. 

In the reign of Apries, we observe that the 
Greek foreigners were creating trouble ; the mili- 
tary class, who revolted and set up Amasis, were 
met by the Ionian and Carian auxiliaries to the 
number of 30,000. But Amasis found little 
favor among the native Egyptians who despised 
him as not being of an illustrious family ; the 
result was he turned to the Greeks, and gave them 
a city Naucratis, and other places for trading as 
well as for their altars and temples. Nay, he 
dedicated offerings to the Greek Gods at Samos 
and elsewhere, as Croesus did. To be sure, he 
dedicated many works to the Egyptian deities 
also, especially at Sals (to Minerva). Greek 
philosophers, Solon and Pythagoras and Thales, 
visited Egypt during his reign and learned her 
wisdom. He broke down the castes of Egypt; 
he was himself a man of no standing in ancestry. 
He feels the new spirit rising in and around the 
Aegaean ; he accepts it and is ruled by it. Psam- 
metichus obtained the crown of the nation, united 



164 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

by help of the Greek, and he was aided by their 
power, but Amasis was intellectually dominated 
by Greek spirit. 

Herodotus declares (147) that he has other 
authority besides the Egyptians for what he says 
about this last dynasty from Psammetichus 
onward. Doubtless he means the Greeks. More 
historical he feels the account to be ; in fact, the 
time begins to move into his chronological era, 
' which starts from 100 to 200 years before his 
age. Perhaps if we heard the priests on Psam- 
metichus and Amasis, we would have a different 
color in the narrative. 

Thus we behold at the end of this Second 
Cycle of Egyptian History the new spirit, repre- 
sented by the Greek, entering Eijypt and really 
taking possession, through Amusis, the king. 
In a sense this is the destruction of Egypt, as the 
seed is destroyed by the sproutling. In another 
sense the Greek influence is the preservation of 
Egypt, it was joined to the World's History and 
still has its place in the World's Culture largely 
throu2:h Greece. A number of Greek writers for 
a thousand years and more sought to reveal the 
Egyptian secret to the world. For that which is 
mystery in the Egyptian must become revelation 
in the Greek. So the Greek has been the 
interpreter of the secluded, secretive people of 
the Nile to the world. 

The Second Cycle began with a great struggle 



BOOK SECOND. 165 

in the land, that between king and priest ; first 
the king triumphed, then the priest ruled and the 
country ended in complete disunion; this dis- 
union was overcome by an Egyptian king calling 
in an external force, the Greek, who really dis- 
places the Egyptian soldier, and causes him to 
migrate to Ethiopia. It looks as if the military 
and sacerdotal caste had undone each other. 
Really Greek power and Greek thought control 
Egypt. 

Is Egypt to secede from the Orient and go over 
to Hellas? Such is the question which introduces 
the Persian upon the scene. Persia is now the 
grand bearer of the Orient, the conflict with 
Greece and the Occident has been already sharplv 
defined, specially by Cyrus. His son Cambyses 
turns his attention to Egypt, which easily falls 
under the Persian yoke. So both, native king 
and Greek soldier, are set aside for a new 
dynasty and a new military power. 

Note. It is to be observed that the preceding 
account of Herodotus does not agree with in- 
formation from other sources, such as the lists 
of Manetho and Turin papyrus, and the monu- 
ments as deciphered by modern Egyptology. 
The period of the three chief pyramid-builders 
is thrown back to the Fourth Dynasty (about 
4000 B. C), and is supposed to have been pre- 
ceded by other pyramid-builders. Thus the 
pyramids are declared to antedate by thousands 



IGG THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

of years the great coDquerors represented in 
Sesostris. 

Still the names of the chief pyramid-builders 
as given by Herodotus are confirmed by the 
monuments, being designated on them as 
Khufu (Cheops), Khafra (Chephren), Men- 
kaura (Mycerinus). Manifestly the guides of 
Herodotus were not trained archaeologists, nor 
was he. We, however, are, at present, study- 
ing Herodotus and are trying to place ourselves 
upon his standpoint ; into the history of Egypt 
as found in modern text-books, there is here no 
intention of entering. That has become a great 
department of investigation by itself, with its 
own demands, methods and aims. 

In the present case we are seeking to view the 
movement of Egyptian history as it was looked 
at by the Egyptian, or rather the Greco-Egyp- 
tian mind four and a half centuries B. C. Every 
age has its own way of regarding the events and 
movements of former ages ; the history of pre- 
ceding epochs has to be interpreted anew by each 
succeeding epoch. For us, looking back at the 
reign of King John of England, the main event is 
the Magna Charta. But for Shakespeare and for 
Shakespeare's England that was not the chief 
matter, the great poet of the English-speaking 
people never mentions the struggle over the 
Great Charter in his drama ot King John ^ but 
4Qe3 put Stress upon the religious oonfliot witb 



BOOK SECOND. 167 

Rome, this being the absorbing matter of inter- 
est in the Elizabethan age. 

So the pyramids were regarded and interpreted 
in the light of the time, when the historian saw 
them ; the consciousness of the present is pro- 
jected backward into the remote past, and traces 
itself out of antiquity. Such a view is not false, 
but deeply genuine, and valid in its sphere. 



OBSEBVATIONS ON THE SECOND BOOK. 

This Book is not an episode in the History of 
Herodotus, in the sense of being extraneous 
to the subject. On the contrary it is deeply, and 
we think, artistically adjusted to the conception 
of the historian, which is that of the World's 
History. Not always consciously present to him 
is this conception, still it is always at work and 
is the driving-wheel of his total history. Egypt 
has to be shown developing through itself, as an 
individual nation, in its secluded Nile valley, till 
it moves forth out of itself and is taken up into 
the world-historical process. Such we have 
already noted in the First Book to be the pro- 
cedure of Herodotus; each people has its time 
of inner development, its national birth ; then it 
breaks its bounds and reveals its internal power 
outwardly as a conqueror of other peoj^les ; finally 
comes the period of dissolution within and sub- 
jugation without. Such is, in general, the move- 
ment of the Oriental nation. 
(168) 



BOOK SECOND. 169 

The entire Book, accordingly, maybe regarded 
as the movement of Egypt into the World's 
History. After its inner development, it is joined 
to the Persian Empire, whose function is to con- 
solidate the whole Orient against Hellas. Egypt 
has felt many Hellenic influences, still it is 
Oriental and so belongs to Persia in this final 
mustering of nations in the present epoch. Later 
it will be ruled by a Greek dynasty. 

I. Summary of Egyptian History. It is 
manifest, then, that Herodotus gives, under 
names of kings, the movements or cycles which 
he sees in Egyptian History. He openly re- 
jected much what the priests told him, being 
mainly a vast mass of names, years, dates, 
dynasties, without any visible order or inner 
principle. Nor was there apparently any 
chronological canon, except succession, almost 
as blank as Time itself. Still less did any poetic 
ordering come to light. So the historian, keep- 
ing up a kind of historic continuity of names, 
really puts the events, deeds, and great works 
under heads and arranges them through his 
artistic instinct into what we have named cycles. 

These we shall briefly recapitulate. 

1. The first cycle — old Egypt, considered as a 
unity ; time of growth, the unfolding of the nation. 

(1) Menes. Internal development; the found- 
ing of the capital (Memphis) and the management 
of the Nile. 



170 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

(2) Sesostris. External conquest, with works 
at home. 

(3) Proteus. Foreign influence, Greek espe- 
cially, which is expressed mythically, however. 

2. The second cycle. — Egypt disunited, sepa- 
rated within itself; national dissolution. 

(1) The pyramid-builders ; king versus priest, 
the religious breach. 

(2) The priest is king; enemies (Assyrian 
and Ethiopian) miraculously driven off", still the 
country falls to pieces (the Dodecarchy ). 

(3) New unity of Egypt, not from within, but 
from without, by means of Greek mercenaries. 
Psammetichus to Amasis. Egypt now enters 
Greek history, and becomes a sharer in the his- 
toric continuity of Hellas and of Europe. 

3. The third cycle. — This embraces the time 
of Herodotus and extends beyond him, as well as 
before him. 

(1) The Persian rule, beginning with Cam- 
byses. ( See next Book. ) Thus Egypt is joined 
to the Orient in the Persian Empire, and is 
thrown against Greece in the great conflict. 

(2) The Egyptians revolt from Persia, and are 
aided by Greeks, especially by the Athenians, 
who send their ships to the Nile. But Egypt 
remains Persian for the present ; in this condi- 
tion Herodotus sees it, probably not long after the 
period of the revolt of Inaros (B, C. 460), la 
g@»@ral tbi^^ epo^h \% a continued ^truggla aa to 



BOOK SECOND. 171 

who shall have Egypt — Persia, Greece, or 
Egypt herself. Not fully settled till long after 
the time of Herodotus in favor of the Greek. 

(3) The Ptolomies, Greek rulers of Egypt, 
who, however, fuse with the spirit of the people, 
and reign till its absorption into the Koman Em- 
pire. This brings Egyptian history down to the 
Christian Era. 

Thus we see a Greek strand interweaving itself 
into Egypt through all three cycles, from Homer 
down, both mythically and historically. The old 
Nile-people, with all its wonders of art, custom, 
faith, had a great fascination for the impression- 
able Greek, who in every age has grappled with 
the sphinx-riddle, and sought to interpret the 
same. These interpretations have a history and, 
inded, a significance of their own; we still have 
to consult them in order to understand Egypt, 
and also in order to understand the many-sided 
activity of the Hellenic mind. Accordingly, we 
shall give a brief abstract in the following : — 

II. Greek Interpretations OF Egypt. Along 
with the actual monuments of Egypt and its 
written records, we have to look mto the succes- 
sive Greek accounts, which are indeed the chan- 
nel conducting the Egyptian stream into the 
world's culture. The interpretation of Egypt into 
Greek life and thought moved mamly on three 
lines, the mythical, the historical, and the philoso- 
pbici in each of which tJre^k .spirit >vus fit bom^. 



172 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

(1) The Greek mythical interpretation. The 
grand separation and distinction of Hellas from 
the Orient and specially from Egypt' was reflected 
in many a legend. First and best is the Homeric 
tale of Proteus in the Odyssey, which Menelaus 
tells to the Greek youth, Telemachus. The story 
of Oedipus is directly connected with the sphinx 
and her riddle, which the Greek has to guess or 
to perish. The Labyrinth and the Minotaur 
(the latter half man and half bull, and hence 
suggestive of Apis) appear in Crete, the border- 
land between Greece and Egypt; Theseus, the 
Greek hero, has to slay the monster (Egyptian) 
and to release its prey, who are children of the 
Greeks. Likewise in the les^ends of Danaus and 
of Perseus we trace the Hellenic relation to 
Egypt. So much for the early Greek mythus; 
but the Greek mythical spirit kept playing with 
Eg3'pt and its wonders through the Alexandrian 
epoch till long after the Christian era. 

(2) The Greek historical interpretation. 
Here in particular belongs Herodotus, whose 
visit to Egypt is usually placed 460-55 B. C. 
He combines, to a certain extent, all three ways 
of looking at Egypt. He has a mythical vein, 
also a touch of philosophical reflection here and 
there; still he is essentially the historian in the 
broadest sense. 

Before Herodotus there were Greek historical 
investigators who visited Egypt. First, prob- 



BOOK SECOND. 173 

ably, was Hecataeus of Miletus (500 B. C), 
who grave an account of the laud of the Nile from 
personal observation, and whose work w:is re- 
morsely pillaged by Herodotus, according to 
modern writers who are fond of showinor their 
critical ingenuity. Before the time of our his- 
torian we must also place Hellanicus, a Greek 
writer on things Egyptian. 

After Herodotus comes a lonof list of Greek 
historians who treated of Egypt, but whose works 
have mostly perished. Diodorus Siculus, his- 
torian, who traveled in Egypt about 57 B. C, 
has preserved some valuable facts about the coun- 
try in the First Book of his Bihliotheca. After 
the Christian Era many names appear as writers 
on Egypt in Greek, which had become the uni- 
versal language of the learned — the Jew Jose- 
phus (born A. D. 37) ; Ptolomy, the geographer, 
of Alexandria (A. D. 160); the Christian St. 
Clement, of the same place and time. It is inter- 
esting to note that the Greek town Naucratis, in 
Egypt, set apart for the Greeks by King Amasi-, 
produced a number of writers on Egypt. This 
town must have been an early home of guides 
and guide books for travelers in Egypt ; Herod- 
otus doubtless employed both. 

Thus a stream of Greek writing, historical and 
descriptive, flows out of Egypt for ages ; it was 
really this writing which explained and joined 
Egypt to the world of culture. 



174 THE PATH Eli OF HISTORY. 

(3) The Greek pJiilosoj^hical interpretation. 
That class of men whom the Greeks first called 
philosophers, and thereby designated the dawn of 
a new stage of consciousness in the human mind, 
were in the habit of visiting Egypt from the 
start. The origin of Greek philosophy, there- 
fore, has many an indication pointing back to 
the land of the Nde, from which at least it 
received no little impulse. Thales, Solon, Py- 
thagoras, the earliest thinkers of Helhis, are all 
reported to have seen Egypt, and to have been 
students of its lore. Pythagoras is credited with 
having brought home the doctrine of metem- 
psychosis, as well as his science of number. 
All of these philosophers lived in the sixth cen- 
tury B. C. One hundred years and more after 
them came Phito, the Athenian philosopher, who 
has also his Egyptian strand. Next we note 
Plutarch of Chaeroneia (125 A. D.) who trans- 
lated and interpreted the Osiris myth for the 
Greek philosophic mind of his day. Finally the 
new Piatonists, who wind up the movement of 
ancient philosophy, return on a number of paths 
to Egypt and the Orient ; some of them indeed 
were Egyptians by birth. They come back to 
the One, inexpressible, above consciousness, the 
unknown; the Nile-stream in them seetns to 
have whirled around to its sources hid in 
night. Thus the end of Greek philosophy 
returns to its Egyptian beginning and goes out 



BOOK SECOND. 175 

forever in presence of the new light, that of 
Christendom. 

Not only on these three lines, through mythol- 
ogy, history and philosophy, did Egypt pass 
into the Greek soul, but also in other ways, 
notably through religion (Greek mysteries) and 
also through art (architecture and sculpture). 

Thus we may catch some notion of the inter- 
est which the land of the Nile and its problem 
roused in the Greek mind. Such was indeed 
its deepest necessity. The Greek had always to 
solve the Egyptian riddle anew in order to 
transcend it and thus assert himself as Greek 
(see the Oedipus legend). The Egyptian 
offered to the Greek his intellectual problem, 
the Persian his political problem ; both he had 
to answer or die. 

This long Greek thread of information and 
speculation about Egypt has come down to us, 
broken in places, yet is our leading-string still 
in many matters. But in our own day the land 
md the people of the Nile have begun to talk 
again through their monuments, through their 
own sacred characters. The Sphinx, silent so 
long, silent to most of the Egyptians them- 
selves in their own time, has strangely begun 
to speak in this nineteenth century. 

The counter-process would be the Eofyptian 
interpretation of the Greek world. But for 
whom? Only for themselves; Egypt had no 



176 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

connection of her own with the movement of 
Universal History, or with the culture of the 
race. She was isolated, introverted, occupied 
with herself; her writing was kept secret, she 
refused to communicate what she was to the 
rest of mankind, perhaps she could not, being 
a mystery to herself. It was the Greek who 
revealed Egypt as far as she has been revealed. 
Still there are indications that the Egyptians 
were not altogether satisfied with the Greek 
interpretation of themselves. Hence arises the 
native historian. 

HI. Manetho. Under the Greek rule of 
Egypt, we find a born Egyptian compiling and 
publishing a history of his country in Greek, in 
order to correct the mistakes of Herodotus and 
other Greek writers. Manetho was a priest him- 
self, born at Sebynnetus; he had access to the 
records of the Egyptian temples and proposed 
to reveal their contents. All this indicates a 
great change in the Egyptian mind; the priest- 
hood evidently has begun to share in the his- 
torical spirit, and is going to tell Egypt's own 
story from an Egyptian standpoint (about 250 
B. C.) Really, however, this is a result of Greek 
influence, that the Egyptian should undertake to 
interpret himself to the world. 

But Manetho's work has perished, he probably 
did not succeed in revealing his people as well as 
the Greeks did. In fact, how could he? He 



BOOK SECOND, 177 

was too near his own to see them plainly. Only 
some of his lists of Egyptian dynasties have 
been preserved in extracts of other writers. In 
fact, the lists of his which we possess seem to be 
two removes or more from Manetho, not direct 
copies, but copies of copies. For instance, 
Julius Africanus, who copied Manetho, is lost, 
hut we still have Georgius Syncellus, who copied 
Africanus. The list in Eusebius seems also to be 
a copy of a copy, though there is a doubt here. 

But anyhow the whole is merely a dry list of 
names, truly an Egyptian mummy, or a mummi- 
fied history. Such is this Manetho to us now. 
We are inclined to believe that when he was 
alive, he mu?t have been a kind of mummy ; 
indeed every Egyptian was probably. His book 
has probably found its natural outcome in its 
present stage of mummification. Herodotus has 
lived because he has life, movement, spirit. We 
must recollect that he could not digest that long 
list of 330 kings read to him by the priests at 
Memphis. Think of the sprightly, artistic, 
imaginative Greek tackling such a pioblem. But 
Manetho tackled it and died, all of him having 
quite vanished except this mummy of him. 

Still Manetho has given prodigious occupation 
to the learned. As nearly everything about him 
and his dynasties is in a cloud of uncertainty, he 
offers the richest harvest for emendation, erudite 
conjecture, and sport of learned probabilities. 

12 



178 THE FAT HE B OF HIS TOBY. 

First comes the questiou : Are these thirty-one 
dynasties of Manetho all successive, or in part 
contemporaneous? The Egyptologers are still 
hammering away at this and other Egyptian rid- 
dles, as yet with no great success, though with 
much increase of material. 

In addition to the lists of Manetho, there are 
other independent sources for the lines of the 
Egyptian monarchs. First in order comes the 
famous Turin papyrus, which, however, is in an 
imperfect, tattered condition. Then the monu- 
ments help out with many names and suggestions. 
It is needless to say that all this distracted 
material tumbled together is but little better than 
chaos, to which are to be added the learned con- 
jectures and re-arrangements of the scheme by 
the Egyptologers, each one of whom has his own 
caprices in the business, as well as his merits. 

In fact, when we rea4 the modern Egyptolo- 
gers we always have to think of the Egyptian 
priests recounting their endless lists of kings to 
Herodotus. For the most part a dry recital of 
names, dates and figures; the whole thing is as 
arid as the Libyan desert, as desiccated as a 
mummy. We cannot help taking the attitude of 
the old historian, who mentions the number 
merely, and is inclined to quit just there. " Here 
follows a list of 330 other kings," but what they 
did seems of little moment. Manetho, Egyptian 
that he was, took up the list of kings and dynas- 



BOOK SECOND. 179 

ties and flung it into the stream of time some two 
hundred years after Herodotus ; Manetho's suc- 
cessors, the Egyptologers, have been tinkering at 
it ever since, and still they cannot make it hold 
water. The interested outsider, not initiated into 
these Egyptian mysteries, reads with searching 
glances, and thinks with the old Greek historian, 
What shall I do with all these barbarous names 
and numbers, so devoid of any significant deeds 
or events, without any historic process in them 
visible? Herodotus at least gives a process and 
thus appeals to the human spirit ; he, some four 
hundred and fifty years before Christ, wheeled 
Egypt into line with the world-historical move- 
ment. Where is the man who can do the same 
for us and for our consciousness, more than 
twenty-three centuries later than Herodotus? 
We are still waiting for him. 

IV. Herodotus in Egypt. When the his- 
torian (but now the traveler) set out from his 
native city Halicarnassus for his Egyptian jour- 
ney is not known. He entered Egypt at the 
western or Canobic mouth of the Nile, passed up 
stream till he came to the Greek settlement at 
Naucratis. Here he found his countrymen from 
Asia Minor in large numbers, yet intermingled 
with many crosses between Greek and Egyptian. 
His own townsmen, the Halicarnassians, were 
doubtless well represented ; with some of these 
he may have been personally acquainted or 



180 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

related by blood; he, being of a well-known 
family, would be hospitably received. Letters 
of introduction he may have had too ; and when 
he set out from Naucratis to see the real Egypt, 
be probably bore his testimonials from his Greek 
friends there to Egyptians at Sais, Memphis, and 
elsewhere. 

Naucratis in the time of Herodotus must have 
been a lively Greek town, with its market place, 
its wineshops, its temples and porticos, all of 
them resorts for talkative people. To these 
places he would go in order to hear the 
news, for this was the ancient Greek 
substitute for the newspaper. Particularly would 
he there catch the Greco-Egyptian character and 
tendency; besides, he would learn much from 
experienced persons about Egypt, her people and 
her customs. He would hear his own tongue, 
chiefly his own familiar dialect, as most of the 
inhabitants of Naucratis were from Asia Minor. 
Many tales which we find in his Egyptian History 
bear the stamp of the story-telling Greek of 
Naucratis. Also he could hear more solid infor- 
mation concerning geography, customs, religion. 

Such, in general, was the first training-school 
of Herodotus in Egypt. He obtained a general 
survey of his subject before starting; he caught 
the transformation which the land of the Nile 
undergoes in passing through the Hellenic mind. 
It must not be forgotten that Naucratis was 



BOOK SECOND. 181 

already one hundred years old when Herodotus 
arrived there. Three generations of Greeks had 
been born in the town. But the Greeks had been 
settled much longer in Egypt; Psammetichus 
nearly two hundred years before the visit of 
Herodotus had given them a foothold in his 
realm ; this was the king who put Egyptian youths 
under the care of Greeks to be instructed in the 
Greek language; *' from these the present inter- 
preters in Egypt are descended" (154). So 
not only the commercial but the intellectual 
intercourse between Hellas and Egypt had been 
established, and even fostered by law quite two 
centuries before Herodotus. The result of this 
intercourse, the Greco-Egyptian spirit, is really 
what the historian has caught in the pages of 
his book and transmitted to us in permanent 
form. Naucratis was his central point, he must 
have remained there quite a while at first, and 
have made excursions into the neighborins: cities 
of the Delta. The work, therefore, which He- 
rodotus has given had been in the process of 
making for several centuries, being essentially 
the Greek interpretation of the Egyptian world. 
At Naucratis our traveler, therefore, would 
find matters prepared for him. There were 
guide-books ; the names of several Greeks of 
Naucratis who wrote on Egypt have been handed 
down. We can also imaojine him takinor lessons 
in Egyptian, in the conversational tongue of the 



182 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

people, of which there must have been teachers 
in that Greek town, though nobody probably 
could explain to him the hieroglj^phics. Thus 
he could help himself out with bits of con- 
versation on his journeys. Moreover, there is 
hardly any doubt that he had some knowledge 
of Persian. He was born under Persian rule, 
and the lanojuao^e of Persia was the official Ian- 
guage of every important place in Asia in his 
time ; it was also the official language of Egypt 
at the time of his visit; as Persian subject he 
probably had his privileges. It is certainly 
within the range of probability that he knew 
somethins: of other tono^ues. 

By such statements it is not meant to affirm 
that he knew any of these languages in a critical 
sense, as they are known by a modern philol- 
oger. Probably no Greek and no Persian had 
any idea of the affinity between Greek and Per- 
sian, though speaking both tongues; the modern 
philologer knows that affinity though able to 
speak neither tongue. Most writers on Herodo- 
tus seem to take for s^ranted that he was ac- 
quainted with no language except Greek, but it 
is a purely gratuitous assumption, and contrary 
to the probabilities of the case. It is true that 
his linguistic knowledge is without any back- 
ground of Comparative Philology, and hence he 
is liable to make mistakes ; but such mistakes 
are far from proving total ignorance, especially 



BOOK SECOND. 183 

in the matter of speaking. It is highly prob- 
able that Herodotus studied, heard and practiced 
conversational Egyptian during his stay at 
Naucratis. 

While remaining in the Greek town, he could 
make many a profitable excursion from it as a 
center in the company of guides or of friends. 
A short distance up the stream from Naucratis 
lies the ancient Egyptian city of Sais, which had 
its own special Goddess, Neit, the unbegotten 
mother of the Sun, whom the Greeks identified 
with Pallas Athena (Minerva) of their own 
Pantheon. From this city Psammetichus started 
forth and freed Egypt with the aid of the lonians 
and Carians (152), to whom he then gave a 
permanent home in Egypt, which was still further 
confirmed by Amasis. Herodotus must have 
seen its great festival; indeed it is likely that he 
visited many of these cities of the Delta at the 
period of their various festivals in honor of their 
particular deities. From Naucratis he could go to 
most of them in a boat at the specified time, accom- 
panied by Greek friends and sightseers, for the 
latter were never wanting in that Greek town. 
In one of these excursions he went to Heliopolis, 
the city of the Egyptian Ea, the sungod, home 
of Egyptian learning, where Plato is known to 
have studied, and where the earlier Greek phi- 
losophers probably received their Egyptian 
learning. 



184 THE FATHER OF HI 8 TOBY. 

When the traveler was fully ready, he trans- 
ferred his headquarters from Naucratis to the 
great capital of Northern Egypt, Memphis. Not 
far off were the pyramids and other marvels. 
The results of his stay at Memphis appear 
throughout the Second Book, especially in the 
historical portion. The great temple of Ptah 
(Vulcan), whose history is closely connected 
with the entire political and economical develop- 
ment of Egypt, was a subject of special study. 
From Memphis he passed into Southern or Upper 
Egypt, going as far as Elephantine, according to 
his own statement. 

But he has not much to say of Upper Egypt 
and its wonders, its temples, its tombs, its capital, 
the hundred-gated Thebes. He has already 
written as much about Egypt as the plan of his 
total work will permit; we have already seen 
how short he cuts his account of the conquests of 
Cyrus in the previous Book; his Greek sense of 
proportion would be violated by too much detail 
concerning Egypt. He is writing a World's 
History, not an Egyptian History; has he not 
already given sufficient for his purpose? He has 
told what was necessary ; so let Egypt next be 
shown absorbed into the Persian Empire. 

Undoubtedly Upper Egypt had been less in- 
fluenced by the Greeks, was less accessible and 
less friendly to them than the Delta. It was also 
quite out of the range of the historian's central 



'\ 



BOOK SECOND, 185 

point, Naucratis, which we hold to have been the 
pivot of his Egyptian travels. Less information 
about it was attainable ; probably, too, at the time 
of the historian's visit it was in an unsettled con- 
dition politically ; the Persian authorities had not 
so strong a grip upon it as they had upon the 
cities of the North. 

Still it is wholly unauthorized (and indeed 
calumniatory) to say that he never saw Thebes 
and Upper Egypt, in the face of his own declara- 
tions and the probabilities of the case. Even 
more unjustifiable is the attack upon his integrity, 
when he is charged with plagiarizing and appro- 
priating the work of preceding travelers (such as 
Hecataeus) without acknowledgment. (See Rev. 
Prof. Sayce's very unfriendly and unwarrantable 
statements in his Book, The Egypt of the 
Hehreivs,) There are many mistakes of fact in 
the Herodotean account of Egypt, but they are 
honest mistakes, though his calumniators have 
often sought not only to disprove his declarations, 
but also to impugn his character. Let the good 
Christian (even if he be a minister) show him- 
self as candid, as fair-minded, as universally 
charitable as this old heathen historian. 

V. Some Egyptian Topics. — The Nile river 
flows through all Egypt, not only physically but 
spiritually ; it makes the peculiar soil and moulds 
the peculiar mind of that country; the Egyptian 
is individualized, is made an Egyptian, through 



186 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

the Nile, which must, therefore, be seen putting 
its impress upon institutions, arts, customs, relig- 
ion, character. The people cling to their river 
like parasites ; they deem themselves one with its 
animals, its bugs and beetles; all are the sacred 
spawn of the Nile slime. 

Art. Egypt is supremely a land of formative art, 
had to be such as a true child of the Nile, which 
pouring down from the unknown into the known, 
begets millions of forms, animal and vegetable, 
high and low. The people must behold these shapes 
of the divine Provider ; the Egyptian will be- 
come an artificer, even artist. There will not be 
simply an imitation of nature, but a play of the 
imagination, the symbol-making activity. For 
the Nile has its unseen, nay, its eternal element, 
and the artist must give this also, or suggest it, 
in his sensuous shapes, else he will not adequately 
express the truth of the Nile, which by its very 
character compels him to manifest the invisible in 
the visible. 

The Egyptian, in his mighty struggle for ex- 
pression, will not follow Nature and simply copy 
her shapes, he will unite where Nature separates, 
he will mingle animal and human parts in every 
conceivable way, in order to show forth the 
forms of his Gods. The Nile, working through 
the imagination of the artist, produces with its 
dual character the Sphinx, half man half beast. 
Thus Egypt becomes the great birth-place of 



BOOK SECOND. 187 

artistic monstrosities, all of them children of 
Father Nile. 

Colossality, too, these works will show, which 
is the striving to make the known reveal the 
unknown, to force the finite to hold the infinite; 
the little Nile here must manifest the Great Nile 
yonder; the seen Nile hand on this side must 
somehow make an imasfe of the unseen Nile 
body beyond, in all its magnitude. Pyramids, 
Tombs, Temples, Statues, and Monuments of 
various kinds have in the main this spirit of 
colossality; Architecture is specially its art. 

Hieroglyphics are pictures of the Nile animals 
which also must represent an unseen element 
along with the seen ; that is, a spiritual counter- 
part begins to enter the physical sign, which 
thus has not only an outer form, but also an 
inner meaning. 'Therein writing has begun, and 
the communication between man and man 
through the written symbol. 

These hieroglyphics have the forms of animals 
mainly, yet they have a significance of their own, 
apart from the mere form. Each has thus a seen 
and an unseen element, and therein corresponds 
to the Nile, which incarnates itself in living 
shapes. Each hieroglyphic is a kind of new 
incarnation ; the pictured animal, visible, as- 
sumes a new meaning, invisible, of the spirit. 
All writing indeed has this seen and unseen 
principle in it ; what is this word before you but 



188 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

a seen outer form with an unseen inner significa- 
tion? Our al[)habet is probably derived from the 
Egyptian hieroglyphic, which became hieratic 
and demotic in Egypt, and then passed to the 
Phoenicians, who changed the picture to a sound- 
sign, and so made an alphabet. From Phoenician 
to Greek this alphabet was transmitted, thence 
to Roman and to Anglo-Saxon. The English 
letters before you are traceable back to the Nile 
stream, which pours through all that you read, 
in a far-ofi" undercurrent ; all writing is an incar- 
nation of the unseen, first wrought out in Egypt 
and first suggested by its sacred River. The 
Nile, in many a subtle transformation, is still 
pouring through us all. 

The ancient Egyptian language survives in the 
modern Coptic, if indeed the latter be not now 
quite extinct. But the Coptic letters are derived 
from the Greek alphabet, with some additions, 
it is said, from the Demotic. The early Christian 
missionaries, in converting the Egyptians, found 
it necessary to change their old style of writing, 
thouofh the language itself remained. The hi«ro- 
glyphic was indeed a kind of sacred picture, an 
idol ; with it was connected the ancient worship, 
and it would always call back the old Gods of 
the Nile. Moreover, the new idea had to have a 
new body, a new incarnation as it were, very 
remote from the animals and insects of the Nile 
slime. The change from picture-writing to 



BOOK SECOND. 189 

alphabetic writing was a mighty step in the 
development of the ages, and was involved in 
the movement from the Egyptian to the Christian 
religion. Still that old faith of the Nile valley 
has thrown out many fibers which have unfolded 
and become ingrown with our beliefs. 

Religion, Art is most intimately connected 
with religion ; to give outer form to the God is 
indeed a necessity for the primitive man, and 
even civilized peoples do not so easily renounce 
it. That which the soul" adores as invisible and 
universal, must be made to appear to the wor- 
shiper ; thus religion calls forth art. 

The Egyptian worshiped animals, for the 
Nile incarnated himself in animal life; his inner 
unseen principle seemed to pass over into the 
inner vital motion of insect and crocodile ; the 
unknown thus shows itself and takes on body. 
Among the Nile animals we may reckon man 
himself in his specialized Egyptian character, 
for man is also a living thing, sharing in the 
grand mystery of life, yet he is only one form 
of the many incarnations of the Nile. 

Metempsychosis is suggested therefore, by the 
Nile, which has a permanent principle amid all 
its transformations. The individual appears, 
vanishes, and re-appears with the Nile, which 
has the immortal element undergoing all these 
chano^es. The Greek doctrine of transmisfra- 
tion did not naturally take to the animal form, 



190 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

but was inclined to keep the human form 
(Pythagoras and Plato). Egypt, however, 
must cling to all the Nile shapes, of which the 
.human frame is but one; hence the Egyptian, 
man and God, is re-incarnated in the lower 
orders of life, lower to us at least. 

Immortality of the soul is bound up with this 
doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. It 
may be said that in Egypt was the one early 
battle-ground to preserve the individual from 
death. Can individuality be immortal, preserv- 
ing itself from being swallowed up in a pantheis- 
tic All or Nothing? Egypt says distinctly it can, 
but it must take other bodies, which are already 
being individualized by the creative power of 
Father Nile. Soul in itself is not fully free and 
complete, is not fully individualized as yet in 
Egypt, without assuming the new living body, 
** the gift of the River." The Egyptian soul is 
not certain of itself separated from the body, 
hence the embalming, the pyramid, the rock-built 
tomb, as well as transmigration. Some writers 
have said that the soul, after its long wandering 
through the thousands of Nile shapes, after its 
long discipline, sinks back into Osiris and is one 
with him; if so, then the Egyptian individual is 
lost after all in a kind of pantheistic world-soul. 

We must think that, as regards the doctrine 
and worth of immortality in the development 
of the race, a most important step was taken in 



BOOK SECOND. 191 

Egjqit. The Nile is immortal, it keeps flowing 
year in and year out, yet with a difi'erence; it 
shows a rise and a fall, birth and decline, it has 
a permanent and a transitory element, in which 
the dawning soul of man will gradually see 
itself, and come to a consciousness of its own 
dualnature, its mortal and its immortal portions. 
The Nile thus is a grand education for its people, 
becoming a symbol which reveals themselves to 
themselves. 

The Nile body remains, even after the freshet 
has deposited its sediment, and the principle of 
growth and vitality has vanished out of the 
stream. Life departs, the body remains, that 
body of the Nile ; so the human shape must be 
preserved after life — hence embalment. The 
new body of the Nile, returning with the new 
season, brings the principle of life into the 
old body. Such too must be man's cycle. Above 
any other duty apparently was the duty of 
embalming, to the ancient Egyptian ; the poor, 
the drowned, the unknown must have their 
corpses, when found, embalmed at public ex- 
pense. Four hundred millions of human mum- 
mies are estimated to have lain in the land of 
Egypt, besides untold quantities of animal mum- 
mies. For the animal too was the offspring of 
Father Nile and contained his immortal princi- 
ple. If the Nile passes into the beast, so must 
man, yes, so must the God. 



192 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

Yet here multiplicity enters and brings con- 
fusion. Some towns of Egypt worship one 
animal, some another; some worship one God 
and some another. Some adore the crocodile 
(Crocodilopolis), and some reject its diyinity, but 
take another animal. These differences are said 
to have caused wars between Egyptian cities. 
Thus the Egyptian Pantheon becomes chaotic, 
self-assailing, a veritable Pandemonium, with 
struggling mortals as its instruments. The list 
of Gods is as confused as the list of kings; for 
thousands of years in Upper and in Lower Egypt 
we find deities cotemporaneous and in succession. 
Still there is a unity of principle in all this 
wriggling mass of Gods, the spawn of the Nile 
stream. 

The mummy speaks its word still to those who 
are ready to listen, and among other things it 
says that spirit has not yet attained supremacy 
over nature, the soul cannot do without the body, 
each has quite equal validity; the human and the 
animal belong together, as represented in the 
sphinx and in thousands of other shapes. Such 
is, indeed, the image of the Egyptain dualism. 

The Hebrew will quit the land of Egypt and 
carry with him the faith in the pure spirit ; the 
God is one, hostile to nature and often to man ; 
the finite, the sensuous is remorselessly extir- 
pated, the animal (the golden calf) must not be 
worshiped. The eternal, imperishable element 



BOOK SECOND. 193 

of the Nile does not for the Hebrew need the 
Nile valley with its thousandfold shapes in nature 
and art; the plastic work becomes an idol, a 
devil fit only to be broken. Thus the Nile, with 
changed course, will flow into Palestine and 
thence down the ages. 

Osiris is the youngest, yet the greatest God of 
Egypt; he lives, dies, and is restored ; he repre- 
sents the process of life, death, resurrection. 
Egypt's fanes were full of lamentations, those 
of Greece had dancing and song and festivity, 
though the dying God was known in Crete under 
the name of Zeus; he doubtless came from the 
Nile. The other-worldliness of Egypt was indeed 
its most impressive trait, it was supremely the 
land of tombs, and of religious ceremonies and 
mysteries. The old Egyptian must often have 
been himself a kind of living mummy, being 
occupied so much with the beyond. Very 
naturally the Egyptians had their descent to 
Hades (Amenti), which also was a phase of the 
Greek religious conception, as we see in the 
cases of Ulysses, Hercules, Orpheus, etc. The 
Homeric Hades, as given in the Odyssey, was 
probably outlined in part from the Nile, as the 
Odyssey in a number of ways shows the influence 
of Egypt. 

The religion of Egypt had also its negative, 
diabolic powers. There was the enemy of Osiris, 
Set, who has an essential part in the dying God, 

13 



194 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

being a stage of the process. Aphophis is the 
serpent, evil, Satan, often pictured on the mon- 
uments. He, too, entered the garden of the 
Nile, was there probably before he entered the 
Hebrew Eden, which was likewise a kind of 
river-garden. 

The /Sun and the N'ile. Their relation is very 
intimate in the Egyptian mind. The Sun has his 
cycle, first the diurnal one, secondly the annual 
one, which latter brings with itself the changes 
of the seasons and also the changes of the Nile. 
Undoubtedly the Nile was the more important 
of the two, and, as already said, the determining 
physical fact for Egypt. The Sun seems to move 
with the River, the two are counterparts, one takes 
a celestial and the other a terrestrial course. So 
the Nile rose to the skies, and there flowed 
through the year, with increase and decline, with 
heat and cold, making summer and winter, to 
which the Nile below responded, with his rise and 
fall. The solar Nile has his path through the 
heavens (the ecliptic), also his broad stream-bed 
(the zodiacal belt), nay, his animals made of 
stars (the constellations of the zodiac). The 
twelve signs through which the Sun passes in his 
annual cycle are composed of animals, human and 
lower ; so the Nile luminary of the skies produces 
and deposits his shapes made of light. Zodiac is 
derived from a word which means animal (or 
little animal), and had its beginning in Egyptian 



BOOK SECOND. 195 

astronomy, showing a mystical connection with 
the River, from which connection it was released 
by Greek science. Some writers, however, 
affirm that the idea of the Zodiac goes back to 
the Chaldean, or to the Hindoo astronomers. 
But its origin was in the Egyptian soul, which 
saw it begotten of the Sun and the Nile-stream, 
whence it passed to Hellas, where it was sepa- 
rated from its terrestrial parent (the Nile), and 
became simply a celestial object. 

The Labyrinth seems to have been a symbolic 
structure, having reference to the Sun and the 
Nile. It had ** two kinds of rooms, some above 
ground and some below ground," an upper and 
a lower, a celestial and a terrestrial, a seen and 
an unseen division ; Herodotus was not permitted 
to see the underground chambers. A sugges- 
tion of the zodiac lies in this: "to the Laby- 
rinth belong twelve courts " with roofs and col- 
onnades; '* six courts are turned to the North, 
six to the South," separated into these two 
sides by an equatorial line, as it were; "the 
whole is enclosed by the same exterior wall." 
If the Nile was raised to the skies, and pro- 
duced the zodiac, this zodiac is now brought 
down to earth and reproduced in a work of art. 
Still further *' there are three thousand cham- 
bers," half above and half underneath the earth's 
surface, hinting the cycle of transmigration 
doubtless ; " the underground chambers contained 



196 THE FaTHEB OF HIS TOBY, 

the sepulchers (mummieri) of the royal builders 
and of the sacred crocodiles," but were not seen 
by the profane eyes of the foreign traveler, in 
spite of his reverential awe. This Labyrinth is 
said by Herodotus to have been constructed by 
the twelve kings, when Egypt was divided into 
twelve kingdoms or nomes, and the government 
(the Dodecarchy), had apparently adjusted 
itself to the celestial divisions of the zodiac. 
Thus had the Nile land received politically the 
impress from above, and its rulers proceeded to 
embody this same impress in a colossal work of 
art, bringing down the Beyond into the Here. 
But the first builder of the Labyrinth is now 
deemed to have been Amunemhat HL, the sixth 
king of the twelfth dynasty, whom the Greeks 
called by the name of Myris. The likelihood is 
that the work was a growth, a product of many 
ages, with the cycle of the Nile transferred above 
and joined to that of the Sun, then brought back 
to earth and reincorporated in art, specially in 
architecture. 

With the Sun and the Nile enters the idea of 
the measurement of Time, to which the Egyp- 
tian g^,x\Q no small attention. Still he had no 
chronological canon or historical clock, no era, 
which is indeed impossible till the conception of 
a World's History has arisen. Even then it is 
a matter of slow growth, as we may see in the 
case of Herodotus himself. Egypt, the exclu- 



BOOK SECOND. . 197 

sive, could not create a chronological era and 
order her history by it; the two elements of 
historical chronology, succession and cotem- 
poraneousness, are hopelessly junabled together 
in her lists of kings, and in the periods of her 
monuments. What rulers and even whatdynas-. 
ties are successive, and what cotemporaneous? 
Herodotus could not say ; probably Manetho 
himself, though an Egyptian priest with Greek 
culture did not and could not. Egyptian kings 
and dynasties are as badly mixed as Egyptian 
Gods and systems of Gods. 

Still there is, we hold, a spiritual order cog- 
nizable in these Egyptian matters, though the 
chronological order cannot be ascertained, except 
within certain general limits. The Time-garment 
of the Egytian Idea is exceedingly loose, still the 
Idea is there and is knowable. But now the ex- 
clusive, solitary condition of Egypt is to be 
broken up, she is to be brought into the move- 
ment of the World's History, and share in the 
grand conflict which opens the historic conscious- 
ness of the race. 



BOOK THIRD. 

This Book as a whole shows an important 
stage in the advance of Persia toward her great 
end, which is the conflict with Hellas. The vast 
Empire is getting ready without and within for 
its historic destiny, to which we see all things 
tending. The movement toward the consolida- 
tion of the Orient, which we noted in the First 
Book, continues. In the first place, Egypt is 
conquered by the new Persian king, being taken 
away from its Hellenized ruler and joined to the 
countries of Western Asia under a common 
authoritv. This makes the Orient a unit, as far 
as it was known to Herodotus, who begins to 
indicate the limits surrounding it in Africa and 
in Asia, to designate the Rim of Barbarism which 
(198) 



BOOK THIBD. 199 

encompasses the more civilized peoples. In the 
second place, there is a decided step forward 
toward Greece itself in the subjection of Samos, 
an island of the Egean, where Poly crates was 
tyrant and had his so-called Thalassocracy (rule 
of the sea). Thus the Persians have conquered 
the List remaining obstacle between themselves 
and continental Hellas ; they have subjugated the 
Greek sailor, though they were no sailors; the 
lordship of the Greek sea is to be the bridge over 
to Europe and the Occident. In the third place, 
Persia undergoes an internal change; she obtains 
a new ruler who organizes the vast, unwieldy 
empire, bringing it into something like order and 
unity. 

Such are the chief matters which the historian 
is to unfold in this Third Book. We feel here a 
spirit moving which we have sought to grapple 
and designate by calling it world-historical. 
Egypt has been more or less isolated hitherto ; 
she has lived her own confined life in the valley 
of the Nile, sometimes conqueror, sometimes 
conquered ; now she is to be wheeled into line 
with the other peoples of the Orient, and is made 
to share in the mighty enterprise which is really 
the begetting of History in the universal sense. 
On the other hand, in regard to Samos the narra- 
tive clearly shows that she could not become the 
grand bearer of the principle of the Occident ; 
her government was a tyranny, and hence too 



200 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

like Persia ; nor would she get rid of it and expel 
her tyrants as Athens did. So Samos falls, as 
Croesus fell, being neither the one side nor the 
other, but somewhere between; she was not the 
true representative of the Hellenic cause, though 
we see that many Samians protested against 
tyranny. It was not the smallness or the pov- 
erty of Samos that incapacitated her; Athens in 
the Persian War was smaller and poorer, yet 
became the real leader of the Hellenic spirit in 
the great struggle. Samos was the first Greek 
city of this epoch and had *' the three greatest 
works that have been accomplished by the 
Greeks" (60) comparable only with those of 
Egypt. 

We shall in advance take a look into the 
structure of the present Book. It is divided 
into two main portions, of which the first brings 
before us the two tyrants and their doings — 
Cambyses and Polycrates, Persian and Greek. 
The second portion shows the fates of the two 
tyrants, along with the manifold vicissitudes of 
their respective governments, Persia and Samos. 
Thus two Threads of Narration run through both 
portions, namely, the Greek and the Persian 
Threads, being deftly interwoven in each por- 
tion; these two threads, as we shall often notice, 
pass through this entire History of Herodotus, 
forming indeed the double element of its compo- 
sition as well as the conflict which it describes. 



BOOK THIBD. 201 

The followinsf gives the structural outline of the 
Book :— 

I. The two tyrants and their deeds (1-60). 

1. The first Persian Thread — Cambyses 

(1-38). 

2. The first Greek Thread — Polycrates 

(39-60). 

II. Fates of the two tyrants — events of 
Persia and Sanios (61-159). 

1. The second Persian Thread (61-119). 

2. The second Greek Thread (120-149). 

3. The third Persian Thread (150-159). 

Such is the skeleton of the Book, suggested 
by its structure, its vital principle, or the thought 
which governs it. But there will be many an 
excursion into other adjoining domains; the his- 
torian tvill interweave fact, fancy, tale, anecdote, 
reflection, in fine the whole varied consciousness 
of his time. He does not feel himself called 
upon to confine himself to the bare historic event ; 
that is but a fragment in the total picture of the 
age, as he beholds it and portrays it. He will 
tell the wonders of the barbaric borderland both 
in Africa and in Asia ; such an account is indeed 
necessary, when we come to see into his proced- 
ure. Geography, ethnography, manners and 
customs of peoples are introduced by the way, 
and stories of personal adventure (like that of 



202 THE FATHEU OF HISTORY. 

Democedes) find their place in the movement of 
the Whole. 

The historian still works-in his idea of nemesis; 
he shows his faith strongly in the return of the 
deed upon the evil-doer, and from this point of 
view he gives a dramatic turn to his record of 
mighty personages. Cambyses and Polycrates, 
tyrants, get back their own in the final act ; their 
doom is written in their deeds. Thus into the 
forward-movino: historical stream is inwrought a 

O CD 

cyclical movement of individual destinies, usually 
tragic; the great man, high-placed, is over- 
whelmed by the fates of his own conduct, though 
a new world is brought forth through his career. 
Successive is history, the individual is cyclical. 

I. 

The two tyrants, Cambyses and Polycrates, 
are brought together by way of contrast as well 
as of similarity in the first portion of the Book 
(1-60). They are the centers of important 
movements of their time, as well as rulers of 
their respective countries. In the one we may 
behold the Persian boundlessless, the rasping 
against all external limitation, the greed of con- 
quest, coupled with the reaction internally, the 
effect of tyranny upon the tyrant himself. In 
the case of the Greek we may observe the outer 
reaction of Greece, seeking to get rid of her 



BOOK THIBD. 203' 

great tyrant, and indicating that such a ruler is 
deeply antagonistic to the Hellenic spirit. There 
is a Samian party hostile to him in his own 
island, then Sparta as the head of Greece sends 
an army against him. Still the stroke of destiny 
comes to Polycrates from a Persian source, not 
from a Greek. He is a middle power whom both 
sides disown and seek to put down ; lying in the 
sea, between Hellas and Asia, Samos and the 
rule of Polycrates mast be absorbed. He 
favored Cambyses in the latter's invasion of 
Egypt, then he is himself swallowed in turn. 

1. The First Persian Thread (1-38). The 
historian proceeds to give an account of the con- 
quest of Egypt by Cambyses, son of Cyrus 
(usually placed in the year 525 B. C), who con- 
quers king Psammenitus after a short reign of six 
months. Cambyses' stay in Egypt lasted some 
seven or eight years, according to the generally 
received chronology ; the king never returned to 
Persia after once entering the hind of the Nile. 
The narrative of the historian we shall look at 
under three heads: the successful conquest of 
Egypt, the unsuccessful attempt to pass beyond 
the limits of Egypt, the rebound upon the 
character of Cambyses. 

(1) It is important to observe the manner of 
the historian in probing for the origin of the 
war between Egypt and Persia. Three possible 
causes he gives, all of them resting on personal 



204 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

grounds — the trick of Amasis, the boyish pledge 
of Cambyses to his mother, the desertion of the 
Greek Phanes. Thus does gossip play around 
the great event and seek to account for it; most 
wars, ancient and modern, have been traced to 
personal spite and ambition, or even to the petty 
intrigues of women. Such may be the little 
taper which starts the conflagration; but the com- 
bustibles must be ready, piled together by another 
hand, if there is to be much of a bhize. 

The deeper cause of this Perso-Egyptian con- 
flict we are to recognize. The time has coaie 
when Egypt is to be torn from her exclusiveness 
and self-occupation, and compelled to start in the 
great world-historical movement of the Orient, 
of which Persia is the leader and the representa- 
tive. Egypt now really joins the historic con- 
tinuity of the race, is forced to join it; history 
she has had hitherto, but no World's History; 
a national history, even an Asiatic history, dim 
and fragmentary, but no World's IIi>(ory, which 
is indeed just now beginning to be, having been 
born of this struggle between Hellas and the 
Orient. The surging of Asiatic peoples over 
one another, down and up, now conquering, 
now conquered, is hardly history, certainly not 
Universal History. 

It may be well to note here that we see in 
Herodotus three phases of historic movement: 
first is a national or internal history, such as the 



BOOK THIED. 205 

Ljdian, Median, Persian, Egyptian; second is 
the international imperial phase, which brings 
several Asiatic nations together by subjugation ; 
third is the world-historical phase, which is begot- 
ten of the mighty collision between Orient and 
Occident, of this Persian conflict between Greece 
and Asia. Such is indeed the ultimate cause of 
the war, including all other minor causes. 

Eg3^pt apparently made no stout resistance to 
the Persian invader, she belonged to him in the 
due order of things. The land was defended by 
foreigners mainly, by Ionian and Carian merce- 
naries, not by native soldiery, who, according to 
one story, had quit Egypt. Evidently there was 
no national spirit flaming up for the defense of 
home and country ; nor could the Greek soldier 
have had much interest in the struo^o^le as a 
Greek. Under Amasis Hellenic influence was 
powerful in the land; but we may reasonably 
suppose that Egypt was too Greek for the Egyp- 
tian, and too Egyptian for the Greek. She 
easily yielded to the Oriental, who was proba- 
bly more to her liking than the Occidental 
intruder. 

Moreover, we learn that the neighboring peo- 
ple, the Arabians, furnished a passage to the Per- 
sian king through their desert, and provided him 
with water. Here was some enmity, possibly 
some jealousy of the Greek. Once the Arabians 
ruled Egypt, had there a dynasty of kings, and 



206 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

always traded with the valley of the Nile. 
Phanes, the deserter, must have known of this 
Arabian feeling; he was certainly in a position 
to know it, being stationed near the border with 
the Greek troops. Hence his advice to the Per- 
sian ** to send embassadors to the Arabians and 
make a treaty with them." 

(2) The Persian, having conquered Egypt, can- 
not rest in its bounds, he is driven by his own 
boundless spirit against the Rim of Barbarians, 
which surrounds Egypt, especially on the South ; 
he hurls himself against the Ammonians of the 
desert on the West, and contemplates an expedi- 
tion asrainst the Carthaiiinians. On all sides he 

O CI? 

impinges against the limits of Egypt by land and 
even by sea; he cannot endure any territorial 
restraint. Such we have already noticed to be a 
characteristic of Persian spirit. 

Now these far-off lands, beyond the pale of 
ancient civilization, are just the realm of wonders 
and the theme of the Marvelous Tale. The 
myth-making faculty begins to play on the line 
outside of the domain of the known fact ; peoples 
wiiich have no history are handed over to the 
imagination. Thus around the whole Persian 
Empire, except where it borders on Greece, is a 
fringe of Wonderland which is a kind of transi- 
tion from the known world to the unknown, the 
twilight of fable lying between day and darkness. 
Our historian will always lapse into romance 



BOOK THIBD. 207 

when he comes to this twilight border of the 
world ; his spirit responds at once to its charac- 
ter, and he springs from the historical to the 
mythical with a decided relish. 

Cambjscs sends messengers to the Long-lived 
Ethiopians *' who dwell in that part of Libya 
which borders upon the South Sea." A remote, 
marvelous people; they have a Table of the Sun, 
to which every sort of meat comes already 
cooked, and he who wishes partakes, the earth 
itself producing these bounties; a kind of 
■ScJdaraffenland^ where the dove flies into the 
hungry human mouth, just broiled aright. Those 
Ethiopians were also *' the tallest and handsom- 
est of all men," quite diff*erent from the Ethio- 
pians of these days. Moreover, their king, 
chosen because he is the largest and strongest 
man of the nation, sends back this stunning 
reply to the Persian monarch: " He is not a just 
man; for if he were just, he would not desire 
any other territory than his own ; nor would he 
reduce people to servitude who had done him no 
injury." Thus is the grand Persian sin set 
forth from the Greek point of view by that dis- 
tant Ethiopian king. 

Nor is this all. He sends a huge bow, his 
own, with the taunt: when the Persian king can 
bend this, let him make war upon me. So the 
Bending of the Bow comes up again as the test 
of strength, as in many a legend, notably in 



208 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

that of Ulysses. The Long-lived Ethiopians 
attained often the age of one hundred and twenty 
years, and sometimes even more, but evidently 
falling short of the Hebrevr patriarchs; their 
food was meat and milk, not grain, which in their 
eyes was but *' dung," or the product thereof, 
and not fit to be eaten. And they had a foun- 
tain, a veritable EI Dorado, in which they bathed, 
whereby the body became as sleek as if oiled, 
and a fragrance rose from it as of violets. This 
is what gave them long life, truly another Foun- 
tain of Youth. Many other wonders are seen; 
finally the tomb is shown ; the corpse is pre- 
served in the semblance of life, by a preparation, 
and encased in a transparent casket, which is set 
up in the household for a year; thus the dead are 
not absent from the family gathering. Such a 
treasure of legend do we suddenly come upon 
among these Long-lived Ethiopians far away to 
the South. 

Cambyses, ** madman that he was," proposed 
to march against this people, ** not taking into 
account that he was going to make an expedition 
to the extremes of the earth." Of course he failed 
utterly, he could not enter this legendary land, 
the limit was fixed against him and he had to fall 
back. Even more disastrous was his expedition 
against the - Ammonians ; his whole army was 
overwhelmed in the sand storm of the desert 
before it could reach its destination. 



BOOK THIRD. 209 

(3) Thus from all three directions Cambyses 
is thrown back upon Egypt, from an inhabited 
land, from the desert, from the sea.* The limit 
is drawn strongly upon him, he finds the boun- 
dary to his will and to his empire from without. 
But he still has no boundary from within, he 
gives himself up to unmeasured caprice, which 
becomes at last insanity. For he gets to think- 
ing that the world is a caprice, without order, 
without law; the man who holds that the world 
is irrational, must become irrational himself. 
The picture of Cambyses, the irresponsible 
Oriental despot, is drawn by a Greek hand for 
Greek readers, but it is psychologically true and 
is verified by the fact. 

The disease which comes of absolute authority 
has been outlined by the great English poet in 
one of his most completely elaborated characters. 
King Lear, once absolute monarch, has limit 
after limit put upon him by his own daughters, 
till he sinks away into insanity like Cambyses. 
Unlimited power has the tendency to make the 
man crazy who is born to it and exercises it 
from youth. Xerxes shows a touch of madness, 
though his father, Darius, seems to have been 
free of it, having had to acquire his authority. 
The Koman Emperors, Nero, Caligula and others 
had mental disease, evidently begotten of their 
position; Russian Czars have shown a mad 
strain; and is^ not something the matter with the 

14 



210 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

present German Kaiser? The impressive lesson 
from Shakespeare's Lear is that absolute author- 
ity is more dangerous to the person who exer- 
cises it than to the people over whom it is 
exercised, though the latter live at the peril of 
a caprice. 

Cambyses quite fills the definition of a tyrant 
given later (80): "he changes the institutions 
of the ancestors, wrongs women, puts men to 
death without trial." We see Cambyses assail- 
ing the customs and belief of the Egyptians : he 
killed Apis and scourged the priests; he dese- 
crated the temples, and scoffed at the Egyptian 
Gods. Nor did he respect Persian law and cus- 
tom: he marries his own sister, violates sepul- 
chres, burns dead bodies — the latter being a 
sacrilegious act, since the Persians believe fire 
to be a God (16) who is not to be polluted with 
a corpse. Finally he slays his own brother and 
sister, having become a monster who devours 
his own family. 

Any limit put upon him he resents as if it were 
the most heinous crime; any advice is a wrong 
against majesty. Upon his own inquiry, Prex- 
aspes, his most trusted friend, dares to tell him 
that the Persians " say you like wine too well." 
Whereupon Cambyses shows that he is sober by 
drawinoj his bow and shootinor throus^h the heart 
his cup-bearer, the son of Prexaspes. Croesus 
admonishes him: "Do not so completely give 



BOOK THIBD. 211 

way to youth and passion, but restrain yourself," 
put yourself in bounds. Whereat Cambyses: 
*' Dost thou presume to give advice to me," to 
me the absolute monarch ! For certainly advice 
means limitation, even limitation of wisdom. 
" Give me my bow," but Croesus jumped up and 
ran out. 

Such is the lively portrait of the Oriental 
despot going mad through lack of self-restraint; 
he finds an external, but no internal limit. Now 
we are to pass to another kind of tyrant, the 
kind which Greece produced in its movement 
from the heroic to the historic age. The main 
example is Poly crates of Samos, but Periander 
tyrant of Corinth is introduced by the way with 
his fateful drama- 

2. The first Greek Thread {39-60). *' While 
Cambyses was invading Egypt, the Lacedemoni- 
ans sent an army against Samos and Poly crates," 
its tyrant. Such is the historian's method of 
connecting events in time. He has no estab- 
lished era, by which to measure each people in 
its movement through the passing years. So he 
seeks to measure the two main peoples, Greek 
and Persian, by each other. The Olympiad is 
not employed by Herodotus, but a kind of 
synchronism, which allows him to throw his 
occurrences into significant groups or cycles, thus 
giving him free range to set forth his ethical and 
dramatic view of things. Still these groups or 



212 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

cycles he makes contemporaneous with one 
another, as he unfolds his two great Threads of 
Historj'; as, in the present case, he gives us a 
cycle of the Persian tyrant, and then proceeds to 
give a cycle of the Greek tyrant, both being con- 
temporaneous and connected in a certain spiritual 
kinship. 

Of course such a chronology is vague according 
to modern notions, but it has its great advan- 
tages ; it prevents an epoch from being cut up 
into years and brings the stress of attention upon 
the complete movements of history. Still it 
shows historical succession and contemporaneous- 
ness, the two time-factors of history ; not by 
years, however, but by epochs and cycles. 

Samos, an island of the Egean, is now the 
Greek center, which has passed from Miletus 
and the mainland, where it was in the Lj^dian 
time. The power has been concentrated in the 
hands of one man. Poly crates, who has dis- 
possessed, his brothers, put down the people and 
seized authority. Thus he differs from the 
Oriental despot, who has inherited his power 
and holds it in accord with the spirit of his peo- 
ple. But Poly crates has brought about his 
ascendency through his own activity and ability, 
having wrenched it from others, and from the 
people who submit with more or less protest. 
He is, therefore, the strong individual, who has 
proved his own right, self-reliant, self-deter- 



BOOK THIBD. 213 

mined, self-made. So he is still Greek, in strong 
contrast with the Persian monarch, though he 
defies the Greek consciousness in establishing a 
tyranny. 

The historian speaks of the long-continued 
good fortune of Polycrates, but it is manifest 
that the latter deserved his luck through his 
capacity. Notwithstanding, such a man is envied 
by the Gods, whose function it is to put the limit 
upon the individual in his prosperity and great- 
ness. Polycrates too has his prophetic monitor, 
as Cyrus had in Croesus and as Croesus had in 
Solon. Now it is a friend, the Egyptian king 
Amasis, who sends the admonition, and bids him 
throw awa}^ that which he values most, *' so that 
it may never more be seen of man." Polycrates 
accepts the advice and resolves to get rid of his 
most precious jewel, and thus forestall fate, like 
Oedipus and like Astyages. The ring (or seal) 
is thrown into the sea far from shore, but is 
brought back to its owner, after having been 
swallowed by a fish which is caught and carried 
to the king by a fisherman. 

The historian again foreshadows the outcome 
of Polycrates through a Marvelous Tale, which 
shows that he cannot escape his own, it is certain 
to come bacli to him after many days. What is 
that of which he cannot get rid? It is his deed, 
that is really man's fate, though the story-teller 
does not say so, for such a statement would be 



214 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

reflective, not mythical. The ocean, the universe 
will surely send him back his own ; a faith of 
this kind rests on the moral order of the world. 
The fact is indeed a marvel, though very real ; 
the Fairy Tale in its best form utters to the 
childlike mind this primordial belief. Possibly 
the ring, being circular, may also have its sug- 
gestion . 

In the present conjuncture Samos is shown in 
a double conflict ; with a party af its own citi- 
zens and with the Lacedemonians. It is mani- 
fest that Polycrates had a strong opposition 
among the Samians; these, when he tried to 
get rid of them, resisted, and called to their aid 
the Lacedemonians, who unsuccessfully sought 
to put down the tyrant. Polycrates, the fortu- 
nate man, is still master of the situation; but we 
see what a stir he roused against himself in Hel- 
las. In the great conflict approaching, Greece 
cannot employ him ; he is too like the Persian 
despot to be the bearer of the Hellenic principle. 
Nor can Samos be placed at the head of Greece, 
in spite of her power and greatness at this time ; 
her people as a whole have shown themselves 
unable to shake off the yoke of their own tyrant; 
they have not the free Hellenic spirit, which is 
necessary to leadership. We may also note here 
that Sparta alone was not equal to suppressing 
the Samian tyrant; still less, could she alone 
have conquered the Persian. A new city is yet 



BOOK THIBD. 215 

to show the qualities which are now seen lacking 
both in Samos and Sparta. Athens will expel 
her own tyrant and then defeat the Persian ; for 
her career events are preparing. 

Polycrates seems to have sided more with the 
Orient than with Greece. He subjugated Greek 
islands and cities, but he was on friendly terms 
with Amasis; then he seems to have quit the 
Egyptian (Herodotus says the Egyptian quit 
him). At least we find him ready to help Cam- 
byses when the latter attacked Egypt. It is 
highly probable that Polycrates saw which way 
the wind was blowing and shifted to suit the 
time. Certainly it was far more important for 
him to be on a good footing with Persia, whose 
territory lay nearest to his own, than with Egypt. 

Polycrates, therefore, had broken deeply with 
Hellenism, Greece could not think of him as her 
protagonist against Asia. But he likewise stood 
in the way of Persia, which cannot accept a 
boundary to her power ; he must in the end sub- 
ordinate himself or fight. Still Polycrates had 
his historic function ; he through his Thalasso- 
cracy kept the Persian power off the sea, till 
the fullness of time ; he was a kind of wall be- 
hind which the infant Athens was protected and 
grew. He united the Greek islands in the only 
way they could be united, by the strong hand of 
despotic authority ; thus the Egean did not at 
once fall under swav of the Persian. 



216 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Alongside of Poly crates, another bad tyrant 
of Greece is introduced in a sad story of do- 
mestic unhappiness. The Corinthians aid the 
Samian exiles, which fact gives the historian an 
opportunity to interweave the wicked deeds 
done by Periander and the retribution. He 
was tyrant of Corinth. He put to death his 
own wife, by whom he had two sons; one of 
these sons, he who had the superior talent, 
hearino: of the murder of his mother, conceived 
the strongest loathing for his father, refused to 
live with him, even to see him. Yet the father 
still loved him, loved him with the greater in- 
tensity, and sent messenger after messenger to 
bring; about a reconcilation : all in vain. The 
aged tyrant at last loses his son by death ; thus 
the domestic tie, which he had so deeply wronged, 
avenges itself upon the violator. Again the 
tragic vein of our historian rises prominently 
into view ; not a marvelous tale but a short novel 
we may name it ; the incidents bear the impress 
of reality and are probably true in the main, 
though the author has given them an impressive 
dramatic coloring. History with Herodotus 
easily passes into biography, and biography 
rounds itself off into complete periods, or cycles 
of life. Such is one of Periander's cycles. 

Samos in the time of Poly crates was not only 
a great political center, but also a great intellec- 
tual center, a precursor of Athens. Herodotus 



BOOK THIED, 217 

praises the great works of the Samians in engi- 
neering^ and architecture — the tunnel throusrh 
the mountain, the mole to protect the harbor, and 
the famous temple of Juno, " largest of all we 
have seen." Samos indeed shows a tendency to 
Egyptian magnitude in its structures, an Oriental 
colossality. Then there were renowned artists 
in Samos, evidently forerunners of Greek sculp- 
ture. Polycrates must have had strong artistic 
taste ; he selected as his most valued object the 
signet ring cut by Theodorus, a very famous 
Samian artist. In fact the Samians seem to have 
liked works of art a little too well ; they are 
charged with stealing the bowl of Croesus and 
the corselet of Amasis (47). Anacreon, the 
jolly poet of Teios, was apparently a favorite of 
Polycrates. Nor must we forget the greatest of 
them all probably, Pythagoras the philosopher, 
who was born at Samos, and probably went 
thence to Egypt in the time of Polycrates and 
Amasis. On account of the trouble at Samos he 
emigrated to Italy, where his career became epoch- 
making in a number of ways. Egypt and Samos, 
through their mighty constructions, may both 
have contributed to his idea of making number 
the principle of all things. Pythagoras was in- 
deed a great teacher, and his school he probably 
started in Samos, then the center of culture. 



218 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

II. 

We enter upon the second portion of Third 
Book with a return to the Persian Thread (61- 
159). There will be a repetition of the two 
Threads, Greek and Persian, thus the structure is 
like to that of the first portion just given. Yet 
there will be a kind of Persian appendix in refer- 
ence to the revolt and recapture of Babylon 
(150). 

In this portion the historian brings before us 
the fates of the two tyrants, Cambyses and 
Polycrates, Persian and Greek, both perishing 
by a tragic death, both showing retribution for 
the deed, yet in different ways. Persia has in- 
ternal conflict also, which she has to settle before 
she can march against Greece and the Occident. 
She has to make a transition to a new race of 
kings, to Darius, the organizer rather than the 
conqueror. The house of Cyrus has done its 
part in conquest, the new order must consolidate 
and build up the empire internally. 

Still there are some conquests. Samos, the 
island of the Egean, the half-way station to cx)n- 
tinental Hellas, having lost its able tyrant, is 
shown to be incapable and unworthy of being 
the bearer of the Hellenic principle against the 
incoming Orient. Samos goes to pieces inter- 
nally, no longer held by the strong hand, and 
easily falls a prey to the Persian. 



BOOK THIBD, 219 

1.' The second Persian Thread (61-119). 
The general sweep of this part is the movement 
from the House of Cyrus, through revolution, 
to a new dynasty and a new order of things in 
Persia. The central figure, the pivotal charac- 
ter, is Darius who makes the transition from 
Persia the conqueror without, to Persia organ- 
ized within. The chief stages of this change 
we shall follow out separately. 

(1) The fate of Cambyses is told in the usual 
dramatic fashion. He had long been absent 
from Persia ; he hears of the revolt of Smerdis 
the Magician. Cambyses had caused his own 
brother, also named Smerdis, to be secretly 
murdered; the result was that a pretender of 
the same name rose up and seized the govern- 
ment, passing himself off as Smerdis, the son of 
Cyrus. The tale of the usurpation of Smerdis 
has in it fictitious elements; the old dramatic 
device, resemblance of name and of person, is 
made the plot of the story (as in Shakes- 
peare's Comedy of Errors and in the Men- 
oechmi of Plautus, which last reaches up 
to a Greek model, which again may con- 
nect with the age of Herodotus). The false 
Smerdis has the same name as the mur- 
dered son of Cyrus and looks like him ; 
hence the success of the impostor. But 
probably both kinds of resemblance are unhis- 
torical ; we know from the Behistun Inscription 



220 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

that the real name of the usurper was Gomatas 
(or Gauinata); the personal resemblance was 
easily added. Still the Magian revolt is historical 
as well as the fact that the impostor pretended to 
be the son of Cyrus. Thus does our historian 
take the reality and clothe it in a fictitious garb. 

Cambyses at once sets out for Persia with 
bitter lamentings for his slain brother Smerdis, 
whom he now perceives to have been murdered 
in vain. Then, leaping on his horse, he was 
wounded by his own sword in the thigh, ** just 
where he had formerly stabbed the Egyptian God 
Apis." So retribution has come; the dream is 
fulfilled, which he tried to forestall in the case of 
Smerdis ; and the prophecy concerning his death 
is about to be verified. With deep remorse he 
confesses his guilt, and announces that the 
Median Magi, " he whom I left steward of my 
palace and his brother Smerdis," now rule the 
land of Cyrus. He conjures the Persians pres- 
ent to recover the crown from the Medes, 
wherein we may see that there was still some 
jealousy between the Persians and the Medes, 
and that the present revolution had its political 
side. 

(2) This revolt or usurpation of the Magi has 
given rise to a good deal of conjecture. From 
two or three allusions we may infer that Herod- 
otus regarded it as a political revolution ; the 
Medes revolt and regain for a few months their 



BOOK THIBD. 221 

ancient ascendency. This view is held by in- 
fluential modern historians (Grote and Niebuhr). 
Unquestionably there is some truth in the view. 
The House of Cyrus in the person of its monarch 
Cambyses had quit Persia and had stayed in 
Egypt ; why should not discontent arise ? Then 
after Cambyses there was no heir of the House of 
Cyrus ; why should not the authority revert to the 
Medes? The ruler being absent, the Empire in 
Asia would have a tendency to dissolve of itself. 
Hence the call for the organizer, Darius. 

Yet there is no doubt that a religious principle 
plays in also, as is always the case in the political 
revolutions of the Orient. The Magians were 
worshipers of the elements — fire, air, water, 
sun, moon; this worship had assailed and proba- 
bly in part had supplanted the old Persian 
Dualism, Light and Darkness, or good and evil, 
Ormuzd and Ahriman (see Rawlinson's Essay, 
appended to his Translation of Herodotus, Book 
n.). The conquered population of Media and 
Persia adhered to their old religion, which was 
not that of their Aryan conquerors. This old, 
partially repressed religion again flames up and 
seeks supremacy, not only religious but also 
political, in the Magian revolt. 

To this we may add that there was also some- 
thing of a social upheaval in the affair. The 
Magi were priests, in the possession of a sacred 
ritual; they were a caste. On the other hand. 



222 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

the Persians were soldiers, at least the chief 
soldiers, and they had the State. Thus the con- 
flict so often seen in History, arises in Persia, 
the conflict between the military and the sacer- 
dotal class. A priest-king gets the crown ; at 
once he exempts everybody from military service 
and from tribute, doubtless a very popular 
measure to all except the Persians, who were the 
military captains and were exempt from tribute 
at all times. But the State went to pieces by 
such a policy ; see the many revolts which Darius 
had to put down mentioned in the Behistun In- 
scription (Rawlinson Herodotus, Vol. II., Ap- 
pendix). Such a political result may have been 
intended by the Magus, as it would destroy the 
Persian supremacy. 

Such various gleams — political, religious, 
social — flash out of this revolution from afar, 
with much intermittent darkness. The student 
will note that the same conflict between the two 
castes, priest and soldier, took place in Egypt 
also (see the preceding Book), and with the 
same result, namely, the dissolution of the State 
under a priest-king. But Persia at once recov- 
ered herself, while Egypt remained long in a 
condition of internal disruption. 

(3) The story of the discovery of the impos- 
ture and the death of the Magi is given with 
fullness and vigor by the historian (67-78). A 
noble Persian Otanes finds out the truth throus^h 



BOOK THIBD. 223 

his daughter, who is one of the wives of the 
king; five associates join w^ith him, when Darius, 
son of Hystaspes, arrives in Susa from Persia, 
and is taken into the conspiracy. Darius also 
had found out the imposture, and Prexaspes, 
who had slain the true Smerdis, announces the 
fact openly to the people and puts an end to his 
own life on the spot. It is curious that Darius, 
who had to tell a falsehood to the guard in order 
to gain entrance to the king, gives a sophistical 
defense of lying (72), which in a good Persian 
seems contradictory, as a chief point in their 
education was to speak the truth. But he seems 
to justify himself *' by the advantage to be 
gained," and so he serves up deception to the 
deceiver. 

As there is now no ruler and no established 
authority of any kind, the question comes up, 
what form of government shall we choose? At 
least such a question comes up in the mind of 
Herodotus, who all his life must have been hear- 
ing discussions about the best method of con- 
structing a State. Those active Greek heads had 
already opened the problem, which is still worked 
over and over w^ith many a twist and turn : Shall 
it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy? 
Hardly does any such question belong to the 
Orient, but here it is interjected into the 
stream of events, and we may well listen to the 
aro^ument. 



224 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

Otanes favors a democracy : ' ' How can a 
monarchy be a well-constituted government, 
where one man is allowed to do what he pleases 
without responsibility T ' Very distinctly does the 
speaker point out the psychological effects of 
absolute authority upon the one who exercises it : 
*' If the best man were granted such power, he 
would depart from his wonted thoughts, inso- 
lence would be engendered in him." Behold the 
career of Cambyses. Envy too will rise in the 
breast of the monarch. '* He changes the coun- 
try's institutions, violates women, and puts men 
to death without trial." A summary of the 
Greek tyrant! "Democracy, on the contrarj^ 
has isonomy (equality before the law), most 
beautiful word ! The ruling power is selected by 
lot and is responsible, while all plans are referred 
to the public." 

From these and other expressions in the 
course of his History, as well as from certain 
events of his life, Herodotus is usually consid- 
ered as favoring democracy. Still he puts a plea 
for aristocracy (the rule of the bjest) into the 
mouth of Megabyzus, who repeats the Greek com- 
mon-places about the folly and tyranny of the 
multitude; ** nothing is more senseless and inso- 
lent than the worthless rabble (canaille, bum- 
mers)," better the single-headed tyrant than the 
many-headed one. Thus the everlasting conflict 
between Demos and Aristos, with boundless 



BOOK THIRD. 225 

mutual vituperation, has started on its career 
down time. 

Darius now takes up the argument in favor of 
monarchy, after setting forth the evils inherent 
in the other two forms of government. More- 
over did not we Persians get our freedom from 
Cyrus, a monarch? ** My opinion is that we 
should maintain the same kind of government 
and not change the institutions of the fathers." 
Darius has the best of the argument for his 
Oriental audience, the three silent conspirators 
side with him, and a monarchy is decreed. But 
who is to be the monarch? It comes to the 
man who has defended monarchy. Darius in his 
speech puts special stress upon the monarch's 
being a good man; on the whole, he fulfills the 
requirements which he himself lays down. 

We may w^ell think that this whole discussion 
is a piece taken out of our historian's life at 
Athens. The Y^^i^tisans of Aristos and Demos 
were abundant in that city, though Demos had 
the upper hand ; it is possible that even Tyran- 
nos (some belated follower of Pisistratus) may 
have had his defenders. It is supposed that 
Herodotus came into personal contact with Peri- 
cles, the grand champion of democracy; we may 
have here some short abstract of a speech or a 
conversation of the Athenian statesman. Cer- 
tain it is that Demos makes the best plea of the 
three in this Persian disputation, which is, how- 

15 



226 THE FA THE B OF HIS TOBY. 

ever, simply a bit of Greek speculation on the 
nature of government. The historian naively 
declares at the start that some Greeks think such 
a discussion never took place in Persia. 

(3) Darius shows himself the right man in the 
right place at the right time : he becomes the 
organizer of the Persian Empire, now falling to 
pieces. It is true that he is repi esented as get- 
ting the crown through the sagacity of his groom, 
but he probably obtained it through merit, and 
took it himself by his own power. The histo- 
rian is fond of tracing the external accident 
which accompanies the inner and necessary 
movement of events. Some have supposed, too, 
that Darius was the rightful heir after the ex- 
tinction of the house of Cyrus; the Behistun 
Inscription seems to make some such claim. At 
any rate he begins by showing his insight into 
the needs of his time and of his country, as well 
as his administrative talent. He divides the 
Empire into twenty nomes or satrapies ; then 
he imposes on each a fixed tax, which is certainly 
an enormous stride forward in administration. 
The historian says : ** During the reign of Cyrus 
and Cambyses there was no stipulated tribute, 
but only presents." The regulation was prob- 
bably unpopular with the ruling Persians, for it 
lessened their opportunity for rapacity and 
plunder. " Hence the Persians call Darius a 
tradesman," an opprobrious term in their eyes. 



BOOK THIItD. 227 

It has been often noticed that the Turkish 
and Persian governments of to-day are very 
similar to the ancient Persian. Indeed some 
writers affirm that the ancient Persian Empire 
was better administered than are Turkey and 
Persia at present. Less cruelty, less fanaticism, 
less corruption and rapacity ; more enlighten- 
ment, more civilization ; so we may give credit 
to Darius as a great reformer in political and 
probably in religious matters. In the Behistun 
Inscription he declares that he had restored the 
faith of Ormuzd, which the Maojian rule had set 
aside. 

(4) The historian, having given an account of 
the organization of the Persian Empire by Darius, 
passes to its extreme limits toward the East, 
where it had subjected India, which Herodotus 
unquestionably places in the valley of the Indus, 
not in the valley of the Ganges. Of the con- 
quest of these Eastern lands by Persia we know 
nothing, though it is evident that there must 
have been great wars of subjugation in those 
regions. But such events are not historical, have 
never been taken up into the historic movement 
of the race ; Persia herself gets a place in His- 
tory almost wholly through her great conflict with 
the West and its representative, Hellas. The 
struggle of Persia with India, Bactria, Sogdiana 
and the rest was outside the pale of the historic 
consciousness. 



228 THE FATHEH OF HISTOHY. 

Our historian, as soon as he begins to treat of 
these remote parts, becomes mythical in his nar- 
rative; India is now the land of wonders (98). 
He drops into the Marvelous Tale in order to 
account for the vast quantity of Indian gold; 
hence the story of the huge ants which dig up 
the sands of the desert and thus bring to the 
surface the shining metal, which is carried off at 
the risk of human life. Such is the toiling 
miner here, who throws out the treasures of the 
earth without knowing their value, and is robbed 
of them by the stranger. It has been often con- 
jectured that stories of this sort are fabricated in 
order to scare away explorers. 

In like manner Arabia to the South furnishes 
a borderland of Arabian Tales for our historian, 
similar to those of the Thousand Nights ( 107). 
On this rim of the world grow those marvelous 
aromatic articles which lend such a perfume to 
Araby the Blest. Frankincense is guarded by 
winged serpents, which have to be driven off by 
burning styrax, whose offensive odor conquers 
these fragrance-loving reptiles. The cassia has 
to be fouojht for ao^ainst *' wing^ed animals like 
bats, which screech terribly and are very fierce." 
Cinnamon is obtained from the nests of large 
birds, which are built at inaccessible places on 
high mountains, and which are broken down by 
huge pieces of meat carried up thither by these 
birds (compare the fabulous roc in the story of 



BOOK THIBD. 229 

Sinbad). Mythical animals and fowls, often 
with commingled shapes, are characteristic of the 
art and the les^end of the Orient. 

The historian (106) gives us a glimpse of his 
philosophy in this matter. *' The extreme parts 
of the earth possess the most excellent prod- 
ucts " — that is, the most extraordinary; India, 
'*the farthest reo^ion of the inhabited world 
toward the east," has the largest birds and 
quadrupeds, as well as the most gold. Arabia, 
*'the farthest of all inhabited countries toward 
the south " has its wonderful aromatic plants. 
From these wonders of nature the mind easily 
sweeps to the wonders of fable ; so the extremes 
of the earth with their extraordinary products 
become Fableland. Extraordinary they are for 
Greece w^ith its moderate climate, its central situ- 
ation, its even-tempered people whose chief prov- 
erb is, JSfo excess. As our historian moves out 
in Space from his Hellenic center toward the 
Oriental border, he gets mythical; in like man- 
ner, as he moves upward in Time, he shows a 
similar tendency. The present belongs to the 
Understanding and is historical; the distant be- 
longs to the Imagination and grows more and 
more toward the fabulous. 

Already we have noted a similar fringe of 
fable to the South of Egypt, the African border, 
in the first Persian Thread ; now in this second 
Persian Thread we have the Asiatic border of 



230 ^ THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

fable, hinting the symmetrical structure of the 
present Book. 

Thus the history of Persia fades into a mythi- 
cal twilight, as the historian moves out toward its 
limits. Already the account of Persia is mingled 
with fictitious elements, though they clothe real 
history. Not the least interesting study is the 
consciousness of the historian, as he unfolds his 
great work ; he becomes mythical in his treat- 
ment where man is mythical ; for the chief his- 
toric fact of an epoch and of a nation may be 
just the fact that they are mythic;il, or in the 
mythical stage. 

2. The second Greek Thread (120). In the 
preceding Thread we see Persia rising to a new 
life and order through Darius ; in the present 
Thread we witness a Greek State sinking into 
disorder and ruin, and finally absorbed into the 
Persian Empire. Samos is a tyranny, which can- 
not take an independent position permanently 
between the Orient and the Occident ; when the 
strong tyrant is destroyed, the people show them- 
selves incapable of continuing either a free or a 
tyrannical government. 

( 1 ) The fate of the Greek tyrant Polycrates 
is told first, in correspondence with the fate of 
the Persian tyrant Cambyses of the preceding 
Thread. 

A Persian satrap of Asia Minor, Oroetes by 
name, evidently sees the necessity of getting rid 



BOOK THIBD. 231 

of Polycrates, and so lure? him to destruction 
by a tempting bait — heaps of money. More- 
over, he throws the Greek tyrant off his guard 
by a specit)us pretext, saying that " King Cam- 
byses meditates my death." Plainly does Poly- 
crates here lose his sagacity, he perishes through 
the plot of Oroetes by a most terrible kind of 
death, which the historian refuses to describe. 
Moreover he is entrapped into an unfriendly act 
asfainst Persia, offerins^ to take the treasures 
which really belonged to the Persian monarch, 
if Oroetes had been telling the truth. The fore- 
cast of Amasis regarding Polycrates has come 
true. 

Note the various causes assigned by the his- 
torian for the slaying of the Greek tyrant by 
Oroetes : first the taunt from another Persian 
satrap — purely fortuitous; secondly a personal 
cause — the insult to the satrap's herald on the 
part of Polycrates; thirdly, the political cause — 
the tyrant's ambition to rule the Greek islands 
and Ionia (122) and thus put a limit on the 
Persian supremacy. To these causes, we may 
add the fourth, the world-historical, not directly 
mentioned by Herodotus : the Samian power 
could not be the bearer of either Hellenism or 
Orientalism in the approaching struggle, and 
had, in the order of things, to be swept out of 
the way. 

We may observe, in passing, the clear distinc- 



232 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

tion which the historian makes (122) between 
the historical and the mythical : Polycrates is 
the first Greek who formed the plan of a Thal- 
assocracy (rule of the sea), except Minos or any 
others before his time (who belong to the heroic 
or mythical age); but in the so-called human 
(non-heroic or historical) age Polycrates is 
the first. Such is the important distinction 
here made by the historian himself, which he 
speaks of as current in his time, probably at 
Athens. 

After the Samian Thalassocracy comes the 
Athenian, which Herodotus saw before him 
when writing this passage, and compared it with 
that of Polycrates, who had the idea which 
Athens carried out after the Persian War. It 
must be remembered that Herodotus passed some 
time at Samos, where he had the opportunity of 
studying Samian history from native sources, and 
of finding its true place in the development of 
Greek history. Also he made a prolonged stay 
at Athens. Thus he seeks to order the totality 
of Greek history, giving every section its due, 
quite as Homer gives a totality of the Greek 
world in describing the Trojan conflict. 

It is to be noted that Thucydides and Aristotle, 
both later than Herodotus and both quite devoid 
of his legendary sympathies, allude to the 
Thalassocracy of Minos as historical (Thuc. I. 
4, and Arist. Pol. II. 10. See Hawlinson, also 



BOOK THIBD. 233 

Stein^ ad loc). Thus we find our historian 
dropping hints here and there, which show that 
he was to a certain extent conscious of his own 
procedure, or growing into a consciousness 
thereof in the writing of his Book. This dis- 
tinction between mythical and historical is 
fundamental in his spiritual texture, and he 
was aware of it in part. 

This Oroetes is not a very good Persian in one 
way ; he is a cunning liar, deceiving Polycrates, 
himself no novice in craft, both with words and 
actions. Thus he is learning Greek subtletv and 
bringing it home to its chief practicers. But 
Oroetes himself, becoming insolent with success- 
ful treachery and murder, gets the backstroke of 
his own deeds, and perishes through a plot laid 
for him by Darius, who also can employ decep- 
tion, as we have already seen. Thus the Persian 
tyrant gets his own also ; this even-handed jus- 
tice is not confined to the Greek, being indeed a 
principle of the world-order. 

Still Oroetes with his crimes has his place in 
the grand historic movement of the age. He 
brings about the death of Polycrates, which takes 
awav the main barrier of the Persian to crossino; 
the sea into continental Greece. The Samian 
Thalassocracy is destroyed, the Egean becomes a 
Persian sea, still traversed by Greek sailors, 
though no longer independent. The Persian, 
however, was never fully able to master the 



234 THE FATHEB OF HI STORY. 

watery element ; though ruler, he was still 
dependent on the Greek mariner. The new 
Thalassocracy, the democratic one, that of 
Athens, will rise and sweep him from the sea. 
But this is a chapter of Greek history, whose 
full development lies beyond the ken of our 
historian. 

(2) Now we have another kind of story in- 
terwoven into the narrative, forming a contrast 
with the tale of the tja-ants, and showing the new 
realm in which the Greek triumphs over the Bar- 
barian. Greek science is also to be celebrated in 
the pages of history ; Greek intellect will finally 
be the conqueror in this conflict, Pallas Athena 
and her city will overwhelm the Persian, who 
tries to seize both bv violence, from the outside. 

Democedes (120) was born in Crotona, a Greek 
city of Italy, famous for its medical school. He 
had been a kind of public practitioner in several 
Greek States — Egina, Athens, Samos — by 
which fact we see that the Greek cities had 
already some sort of sanitary regulation, and 
regarded health as a public matter. Instruments, 
too, he had; the free Greek life of the time is 
manifestly flowering into science. 

But Democedes ventures into Asia in com- 
pany with Polycrates; he soon finds himself 
a slave, and is sent up to Susa, the Persian 
capital, along with other slaves. There, how- 
ever, his medical skill quickly brings him into 



BOOK THIBV. 235 

notice, he cures the king's sprain by means 
of " his Greek remedies," the Egyptian doc- 
tors being completely outdone and discredited. 
It is a noteworthy fact that he intercedes to 
save his medical rivals from the effects of 
the king's displeasure, and does rescue them ; 
a truly humane trait, also a result of the free 
Greek life, which recognizes the competitor and 
will not destroy him. Still Democedes, though 
honor, wealth, and royal favors are showered 
upon him, is unhappy, is a bird in a cage ; he 
longs to return to Greece where alone he finds 
life worth living. He is not free at the court of 
Darius, so he plans his escape. 

Here a personal element plays in to help him 
out : Queen Atossa is cured by him of a danger- 
ous malady and gives him a promise to send him 
to Greece. She is another Persian besfuiler, now 
a woman beguiling her husband. But under this 
personal reason we can observe the political 
reason: Greece has become the grand limit of 
the Persian Empire ; we may go further and say 
the grand limit of Persian consciousness, which 
limit must somehow be removed if Persia is to 
exist. Thus Atossa' s words only persuade Darius 
to do that which he was ready to do, and to 
which Persian spirit was pressing him forward. 
So an explonng expedition is sent out to Greece 
with Democedes, in order to take notes of the 
country and report to Darius the situation. 



236 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

"Fifteen eminent Persians" went with him, 
who were ** to see that he did not escape;" so 
he was suspected a little after all. 

When the Greek doctor is as far away as pos- 
sible from Persian authority, in distant Italy, 
he succeeds in escaping to his own home, Cro- 
tona, whither the Persians pursue him and try 
to capture him in the market place as a runaway 
slave; but it goes against the grain of a free 
community to give up such a fugitive. After a 
struggle the pursuers leave without Democedes, 
who sends back to the king a piece of Greek 
bravado. Says the historian, *' These were the 
first Persians who came from Asia to Greece, 
and these came as spies," spying out the future 
problem of Persia; Democedes was hardly the 
cause of the embassy's being sent, rather the 
embassy was the cause of his being sent to 
Greece. 

It is a typical story of the time, showing how 
science had begun to germinate in that free 
Greek life, with an excellence not to be found in 
Asia, or even in Egypt noted for its physicians 
from the old ages; showing how the Asiatic 
monarch wished to possess this excellence for 
himself, and so tried to seize it from without and 
reduce it to servitude ; how the captive Greek 
longs to escape and to return to his own free 
world. In like fashion a Persian monarch later 
on will trv to seize all Hellas at once from the 



BOOK THIBD. 23? 

outside, thinking perchance he can possess its 
superiority in that way; but he will be foiled, as 
Darius is foiled in keeping Doctor Democedes in 
slavery, though the chains be golden. 

(3) Having heard the story of Democedes, 
we return to the history of Samos (139) after 
the death of Poly crates. It is not the intention 
of the Persian to surrender the advantage gained, 
he must take possession of Samos, "the first 
city of Greece " at that time, and the capital of 
the Thalassocracy, which blocked the passage to 
Europe. The plan is to establish a Greek tyrant, 
brother of Poly crates, over the city, yet have 
him subject to Persian authority. Here again a 
personal ground is given to account for the selec- 
tion of the man whose name is Syloson : he, on 
a visit to Egypt in the reign of Cambyses, had 
done a favor to Darius, then a member of the 
body-guard of the Persian monarch, *' and a 
person of no great account;" thus he became a 
benefactor of Darius, who gave him back his 
favor in the shape of the government of 
Samos. 

The Samians, however, show themselves 
divided upon the great question of the time : 
Shall we accept the Persian and the tyrant, or 
turn toward democracy and freedom? Maean- 
drius, the chief man left in chargfe after 
the death of Poly crates, favors the latter; 
" what I condemn in another, I shall not 



238 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY, 

do myself, namely, exercise despotic sway 
over others equal to myself. I, therefore, la}^ 
down my authority and proclaim isonomy for 
all." But just at this point the Greek dema- 
gogue appears with his scurrility, and even 
Maeandrius gives up his lofty hopes of isonomy : 
*' for he saw that if he should lay down his 
power, some other fellow would be set up as 
tyrant in his place." He perceiving the situa- 
tion proposes to surrender to the Persians without 
a blow, and quit the country, but an unexpected 
opposition rises through his brother Charilaus, 
'* a half-witted person." Syloson however gets 
possession of Samos and the Persian influence be- 
comes paramount. Maeandrius goes to Sparta; 
then deemed the head of the opposition to Per- 
sia, but he is rudely expelled under the pretext 
of bribery. But how could he, who had been 
both a democrat and a tyrant, be acceptable to 
aristocratic Sparta? 

Thus Samos with its Thalassocracy is swallowed 
up, and the sea no longer stands in the way of 
the Persian advance to the mainland of Europe. 
Samos could not be the bearer of the Hellenic 
principle, that is plain ; so it is swept out in the 
great overshadowing movement toward the cul- 
minating struggle. But Darius and Persia are 
held back from Greece for the present by an 
internal trouble; this is the revolt of Babylon, 
which is appended here to the present Book. 



BOOK THIBD. 239 

3. The third Persian Thread (150-160). 
*' While the naval armament was moving against 
Samos, Babylon revolted, having prepared itself 
well; " this great city in the heart of the Per- 
sian Empire, had to be retaken first of all. The 
hero is Zopyrus, who shows his devotion to his 
king and country by maiming himself and pre- 
tending to desert to the enemy, over whom he is 
placed in command on accomit of his zeal and 
bravery, then at the critical moment he betrays 
the city. This is a well-known Eastern Tale of 
which many forms have been current throughout 
the Orient. It reappears in Greek and Roman writ- 
ers (for instance, Polyaenus and Livy), and may 
thus be reo^arded as a kind of universal folk-tale, 
which shows the loyalty of the individual to his 
land and ruler in a peculiar way involving self- 
mutilation, deep-laid cunning, courage, with final 
success and reward. The historic fact is the re- 
volt and recapture of Babylon ; the fiction plays 
in with the hero performing the deed. 

In the Behistun Inscription, which mentions 
two revolts of Babylon under Darius, the name 
and deed of Zopyrus are not mentioned; the 
naked fact of rebellion and conquest is stated in 
the most naked fashion. Great is the contrast 
with Herodotus, who clothes the historical with 
the heroic and mythical. 



OBSERVATIONS ON TEE THIRD BOOK. 

1. The reader will notice quite a difference in 
style and in manner of treatment between the 
Greek and Oriental Threads on the part of the 
historian; this difference corresponds with and 
mirrors the different character of the two sec- 
tions. Herodotus falls into the tone of the 
Arabian Tales \vhen he describes the wonders of 
Arabia and of the extreme East ; he lays aside 
his critical acumen, and makes little or no sepa- 
ration between history and fable. He seems to 
share in both easily, and can become historian or 
fabulist according to the need of the place and 
the time. When he speaks of the gold of India 
dug up by colossal ants, and the frankincense of 
Arabia guarded by winged serpents, he lapses 
into the Oriental view and belief. The polit- 
ical accounts of the East, those pertaining 
to Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius, are history min- 
gled with fiction, though Greiek conceptions, such 
as nemesis, the return of the deed to the doer, 
(240) 



BOOK THIBD, 241 

wind through them, and gives them a peculiar 
artistic coloring. Remarkable is this sympathy 
of the old historian, not found in any other, 
ancient or modern ; his soul is transmuted into 
that of the people whom he describes, he adjusts 
himself to their consciousness and thus interprets 
them. Asia has even in its reality this marvelous 
element, at least to the Occidental mind; if 
reduced to the prose of the historic conscious- 
ness, its essence is lost. 

The center of this world's periphery is Hellas, 
the land not of extremes, but the mean, whose 
principle is moderation, proportion, harmony. 
When the historian touches the Greeks, he .par- 
takes of their character; he is historical, he finds 
and describes the reality ; he feels himself 
among a people with a consciousness of his- 
tory. The Greek myth he often rationalizes, 
often rejects, yet sometimes accepts; even in 
Greece he interweaves a mythical strand into 
affairs; how else could he mirror Greek spirit? 
But the Orient turns to fableland in proportion 
as he gets from the center ; indeed to the Orien- 
tal himself the world is a kind of a fabulous 
thing. Herodotus reflects this consciousness, 
yet in Greek fashion ; he is partly Oriental by 
birth, residence, travel and culture, and still a 
Greek. He has both sides in a delightful har- 
mony, he is not the extremist in one direction or 
the other. If he were strictly historical or strictly 

16 



242 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

mythical, he could never have done his work, 
he could never have been the Father of Historv. 
A dual nature he has, which not only enables 
him to portray the great conflict with sympathy, 
but makes him an image of it within himself. 

But when our historian comes to the West, 
all chancres and he chancres with all. It seems 
a different world not only as to territory but as to 
spirit; it seems to call up in him a new canon of 
judgment. He will not believe in the Cassite- 
rides, or Tin Islands of the Far West, though 
they existed and exported tin which he saw ; he 
will not believe in the river Eridanus of the Far 
Northwest, whence amber is said to come; yet 
what improbability in a river discharging itself 
into the Northern Sea? No miracle in that, still 
he questions it, though he can believe in the 
Indian ants and in the winged serpents of Arabia. 
" The extremities of Asia and Libya " he dec- 
orates with a fringe of fable, but he utterly re- 
fuses any such decoration to '* the extremities of 
Europe" (115). He also refuses credence to 
the one-eyed Arimaspians of the North. 

Important is the following sentence (11^) for 
the standpoint of the historian in this matter: 
*' The extremities of the world, surrounding the 
rest of the earth and inclosing it within, seem 
to possess those things which are the rarest and 
are deemed the most beautiful." The concep- 
tion of the world's rim, and its periphery of 



BOOK THIBB. 243 

wonders here comes to the surface and finds ex- 
pression. Still the western part of this periphery 
is not adorned with the legend which we find 
elsewhere — East, South, and even in the North 
(see the following Book). 

2. Herodotus must, in one way or other, have 
spent a good deal of time in Samos and with 
Samians. In this third Book he assio:ns to them 
a chief part, and puts them alongside of Persia. 
In the great struggle between Orient and Occi- 
dent he distinctly sees and establishes their 
historic position, which is the most important 
one in the Hellas of that period. Moreover he 
shows an intimate knowledge, not only of politi- 
cal events, but also of many personal matters 
pertaining to the island. In the rest of his work 
he often introduces something about Samos, 
there is something of a Samian strain running 
through the whole of it. 

A late Greek writer, Suidas, states that Herod- 
otus had to flee from Halicarnassus on account 
of the tyrant Lygdamis, grandson of Queen 
Artemisia, who has attained such distinction for 
all time through our historian. The same writer 
relates that Herodotus at Samos chose the Ionic 
dialect for his history and wrote the latter there — 
both somewhat doubtful statements, at least 
needing modification. But another statement of 
Suidas may be in general accepted : the historian 
returned to his native city and aided in expelling 



244 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

the tyrant. This event may be placed {Stein, 
Einleitung, s. 10) in the year 449 B. C, when 
an Athenian fleet under Cimon appeared along 
the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. 

At that time Herodotus was about thirty-five 
years old (born 484 B. C), and had doubtless 
completed his travels in the Orient, or the greater 
part of them. But how long he stayed at Samos 
before he returned to Halicarnassus, cannot be 
told. The probability is, that he had been often 
at Samos before and had connections there; he 
must have read the native chroniclers, for there 
was literary activity already at the court of Poly- 
crates, and historic composition had been prac- 
ticed in Ionia, especially at Miletus ; he must also 
have heard many traditions of the golden age of 
Samos, not a hundred years distant in time ; 
many experiences he gathered concerning the 
Persian war from men still living who had passed 
through them. We can imagine him conversing 
all his life with Samians whom he knew, and who 
had information to impart, jotting down his 
facts, and gradually bringing them into the order 
in which we see them. 

The account of the Samians cominsr to the 
Greek fleet at Delos and begging for support in 
a revolt against the Persians may well have been 
taken down from the lips of one of the chief 
actors (IX. 90). The conduct of the Samians 
who were in the Persian camp at the battle of 



BOOK THIRD. 245 

Mycale and who had been deprived of their arms 
through a suspicion of their fidelity (IX. 103), 
is probably the report of one who was there to 
the inquiring historian (see also IX. 106, for 
another important incident at Samos during this 
same time). Thus the Samians seem to be 
specially mentioned, while the other islanders are 
on the whole lumped together. The two Samian 
captains who took Greek ships at the battle of 
Salamis and distinguished themselves by zeal for 
the Persian cause, are mentioned by name (VIII. 
85) and thus branded with disgrace — doubtless 
the whole being: an echo from Samos. The 
bravery of the Samians in the battle fought in 
Cyprus (V. 112) is duly recorded; their bad 
behavior during the Ionic revolt is not omitted 
(VI. 13, 14.). 

It is not necessary to hold that Herodotus must 
have lived several years at Samos in order to get 
this information, though he doubtless had stayed 
there off and on a good deal. He knows the 
offerings in the great temple of Juno at Samos, 
and knows their history ; matters pertaining to 
Samian trade and wealth he is acquainted with ; 
gossip about persons is not excluded (IV. 43). 
In this Third Book there is a Samian atmosphere, 
which the sympathy our historian has repro- 
duced so well, just as there is an Egyptian atmos- 
phere in the Second Book. 



BOOK FOURTH. 

The main connecting principle between this 
and the preceding Book lies in the fact that 
the Persian is drivino^ with all his mio^ht ao^ainst 
the Rim of Barbarians which surrounds hi-s 
empire. He must remove that external limit to 
his rule or dash himself to pieces against it. 
Already we have seen in Book Second how that 
Cambyses, after conquering Egypt, pushed out 
against the Ethiopians to the South and against 
the Ammonians to the East of his Egyptian 
boundary. In Book First we beheld Cyrus, the 
founder of the Persian empire, perish in his 
attack on the Massagetae to the North of Persia. 
Further to the East, we catch some vague hints 
of the Persian impinging upon India, and pos- 
sibly Thibet, but these countries lie beyond the 
(246) 



BOOK FOUBTH. 247 

knowledge of Herodotus. Thus we see Persia on 
all sides chafing against her physical limits, shak- 
ing the adamantine chains of nature, but unable 
to break through them. 

It is manifest that the Persians are a great 
will-people, conquerors like the Romans, restless in 
any physical bounds yot unable to transcend them. 
Herein they contrast strongly with both Greek 
and Egyptian. The Greek was content with a 
small city, but he sought for autonomy in its 
walls ; the outer bouod did not concern him so 
much, but his endeavor was to remove the inner 
bound to his spirit; not the physical but the 
spiritual limit he chafed against, and so he opens 
the battle for freedom just with this Persian 
Empire. 

On the other hand the Egyptians were in the 
main an introverted, self-occupied people there 
in the narrow valley of the Nile; self-satisfied 
they seem, having no deep inner struggle like the 
Greek, and no mighty outer struggle like the 
Persian, with their limits. Both these Oriental 
peoples flow into Greece and are taken up by its 
spirit, as they are here taken up into the history 
of Herodotus — whereby they, Persia and Egypt, 
become historical, yea world-historical. In them- 
selves, however, they show no such power. 

We have already mentioned the Rim of Bar- 
barism, which, in the present Book, reaches the 
height of its importance, though it encompasses, 



248 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

as it were, the whole history of Herodotus. In 
general, Greece and the Persian Empire lay in- 
side of this Rim, which encircled ancient civil- 
ization, and gave to the same a most pressing 
question, which may be stated as follows : What 
are we going to do with the vast mass of uncivi- 
lized peoples dwelling around us on every side? 
The answer always felt if not spoken, is: if 
we do not put them down, they will put us 
down. 

These barbarous peoples often broke through 
the bound and fell upon civilized countries ; 
note the Cimmerians and the Scythians men- 
tioned in the First Book. The reader can still 
feel in ancient writers that these barbarians 
were a dark cloud in the horizon, uncertain, 
premonitory and menacing; a fate, the real fate 
of Persia, Greece and Rome. It is well known 
the ancient world perished through the peoples 
coming from that border and from behind it. 
The ancient world was tragic in reality, and the 
fate so often portrayed in its Tragedy is its true 
forecast, the very fact of it. 

We may here be permitted to take a glance at 
the various dealings with this barbarous Rim. 
Persia sought to subjugate it externally ; Greece 
sought to colonize it and to impart to it Greek 
culture ; Rome conquered it in part, civilized this 
part, and gave to it law and order and military 
discipline, and then was destroyed by it. Chris- 



BOOK FOUBTH. 249 

tianity went beyond it and gave to its peoples 
religion, humanized them, and so conquered 
Fate, which hung over the old world. Chris- 
tianity first broke down the barbarous Rim and 
made all brothers, so that there cannot again 
be a destruction of civilization from without. 
Greece began the work by her colonies, Rome 
possessed that outside power across the Rim 
externally ; Christianity obtained it internally. 
Modern Europe and even present America has 
no such Rim of Barbarism, or of the civilized 
versus the uncivilized. 

So we conceive of that barbaric border as it 
lay in the mind of Herodotus. Persia grapples 
with it on every side, but is thrown back from 
it ; Persia could conquer only through an order 
in the nation conquered, but the barbarian pure 
and simple has nothing to seize, no fields, no cities, 
chiefly no State, or social order. Persia can 
subject only civilized Asia with Egypt, all of 
which is now consolidated under her control. 

But inside the border, where lies the civilized 
world, there is the grand split; Europe and Asia, 
or Greece and Persia, are the two parts, which 
cannot be made one. The Greek resists Persian 
unity, in favor of what he calls freedom ; the 
matter can be settled only by a struggle which is 
now everywhere approaching. So there is the 
barbarous limit to Persia on the one hand, and 
the Greek limit to her power on the other. 



250 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

The Fourth Book gives two phases of the 
Persian impinging against this Rim or the bar- 
barous limit of the world — namely the Northern 
and the Southern (rather Southeastern), or the 
Scythian and the Libyan. They are thus oppo- 
site, from Greece as a center — counterparts, 
the hot and the cold regions. We may observe 
a kind of symmetry in the two portions, which 
Herodotus shows by his statement that there 
must be Hypernotians if there be Hyperboreans. 

Another fact : each of these borders, Scythian 
and Libyan, has a line of Greek towns, colonies 
sent out by the mother country, for trade and 
for relief of her population. The Greek did not 
seek, on the whole, to conquer these barbarians ; 
he sought his personal advantages there, went 
there to live, and bore thither his Greek culture, 
which he began to impart to his barbaric neigh- 
bors. The Persian did not colonize, little of 
that spirit is seen in the Orient excepting in 
Phoenicia. Greece appears to have begotten 
the idea of colonization and to have introduced it 
as an important factor in the World's History. 
It seems to require a free people to made good 
colonists — not the migratory hordes of the 
East. The colonist must have an individual 
strength of his own in the new land to build his 
home and to preserve his civilization. Each set- 
tlement was a center of light ; so Greece pali- 
saded all Barbary with lines of colonies. 



BOOK FOURTH. 251 

Yet these towns were absorbed by Persia or 
ran the danger thereof. Such had been already 
the fate of the studded line of thriving communi- 
ties along the coast of Asia Minor ; many Greek 
towns had been compelled to yield to Persia. 
So also in the North in Thrace. In Libya like- 
wise Gyrene and Barce at one time or other 
had to yield their independent life to the same 
power. 

Yet another limit of the world was faintly 
dawning — the geographical ; beyond the bar- 
baric Belt lay, it was supposed, vast seas, 
indeed the Ocean Stream surrounding the earth. 
Africa had been circumnavigated, Europe was 
rumored to have a Northern Sea as the limit on 
the North; to the West outside the Pillars of 
Hercules lay also a great sea. The century 
before Herodotus was a time of geographical 
investigation, pushing over the limits without 
and within. The classic Renascence showed a 
similar activity in the geographical field, Africa 
had to be again circumnavigated. Thus Greece, 
the center, seeks to reach the circumference by 
knowledge, by enterprise, even by colonization. 

On the other hand, the heroes, born in 
Barbary, but who saw the advantages of Greek 
culture and sought to bring it to the people, are 
not forgotten. They met with a tragic fate, as 
such men usually do ; still the barbarian became 
tinged with Greek civilization. Note the names 



252 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

of Anacharsis the Scythian and King Scylas ; also 
of Zamolxis the Thracian. So among barbarians 
the new idea had its martyrs. 

The structure of the Book, in accord with its 
theme, falls into two portions; 1st., Scythia 
and the attack by the Persian upon the same 
( 1-144) ; 2d., Libya with its Greek colonies, and 
the attack by the Persian (145-205). The 
attack on Scythia is the main one, being led by 
the Persian king, Darius ; the attack on Libya is 
of less account, being the work of the Satrap of 
Egypt. Both are essentially without results ; or 
at least no permanent conquest is effected; the 
barbaric Kim asserts itself against the vast might 
of Persia in both cases. 

Such are the two main divisions of the Book ; 
but each of these main divisions has leadinor 
subdivisions dealing specially with Barbarians, 
Persians, and Greeks. The whole shows a sym- 
metrical order and movement, of which we may 
take a complete survey in the following tabular 
statement: — 

I. The Scythian division (1-144). 

1. The Barbarico-Scythian Thread — ac- 

count of the Scythian barbarians 
(1-82). 

2. The Persico- Scythian Thread — expedi- 

tion of Darius against Scythia (83- 
144). 



BOOK FOURTH. 253 

II. The Libyan division ( 145-205). 

1. Greco-Libyan Thread, giving an ac- 

count of Greek colonies in Libya 
(145-167). 

2. Barbarico-Libyan Thread, giving an 

account of the Libyan barbarians 
(168-199). 

3. Persico-Libyan Thread, giving an ac- 

count of the Persian invasion of 
Libya (200-205). 

The symmetrical structure of the two divisions 
would be complete if the historian had given a 
separate account of the Greek settlements in 
Scythia ; but of these he tells incidentally. 

I. 

We shall, accordingly, first consider the 
Scythian division of the Book, which, after a 
short allusion to the desire of Darius *' to pun- 
ish the Scythians," will proceed to give an elab- 
orate account of Scythia and its peoples, and 
then will take up the grand expedition of the 
Persian monarch against that country. We shall 
call the entire northern tract, corresponding 
nearly to modern European Russia, by the name 
of Scythia, though a distinction is to be made 
between the Scythians proper and other peoples 
dwelling there ; just as the Russia of to-day 
embraces not only Russians as such, but many 



254 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

other distinct peoples and even races. Both these 
meanings of the term may be found in Herodo- 
tus. 

1. The Barharico- Scythian Thread, This 
embraces the account of the Scythians as a mass 
of barbarous tribes (1-82), which had long be- 
fore Herodotus begun to excite the attention of 
Greek colonists, navigators, and merchants. A 
good deal of information was extant about Scy- 
thia ere the historian wrote, but he traveled 
thither himself, in the true spirit of the inves- 
tigator. Here is the result which still has its 
importance for ethnography and anthropology, 
as well as for geography and history. 

(1) The book opens with what may be called 
a short Introduction (1-4), in which there is, 
first of all, the mention of the leading theme — 
the great expedition of Darius. When Babylon 
had been taken (see end of preceding Book), 
and the troubles of the new monarch, resulting 
from a change of dynasty, had been quieted, 
Darius resolved on making his expedition against 
the Scythians. Why not against Greece? Why 
such a turn given to Persian desire for conquest ? 
The motive assigned by Herodotus was that of 
punishing the Scythians for their invasion of 
Media, when they are said to have ruled over 
Upper Asia for the period of twenty- eight years 
(Book I. 103-6). 

A very insufficient reason this seems; in the 



. BOOK FOUBTH. 255 

first place Darius could hardly feel himself called 
on to aveno^e an insult to Media when he had 
just suppressed a Median usurper and an essen- 
tially Median revolt. Then the insult had taken 
place about one hundred years before this time. 

Therefore we nmst at least add to the reason 
given by Herodotus. That the Scythian tract 
could send forth a wild, fierce, barbarous mass 
upon civilization had often been experienced 
(Cimmerians and Scythians). Indeed the great 
race war between Iran and Turan was something 
of this sort. Possibly a new invasion threatened, 
so that the Persian very naturally renews the old 
war with Turan, with the North, and seeks to 
control this mass in its own home, before its 
departure. 

But, whatever be the cause, the war was a 
happy event for Greece. After the taking of 
Samos, the last Greek barrier was broken down; 
still the blow of the Persian fell to the North, 
into the water, as it were, and the continental 
Greeks obtained valuable time for preparation. 

Note that on the return of these invading 
Scyths to their homes, after an absence of 
twenty-eight years, a story is interwoven, com- 
mon the world over, and pertaining to a soldier 
absent for a long time. What will his wife do? 
A new generation springs up, with which there 
is a contest. 

The reader is next to enter upon a long treat- 



256 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

tise which shows the interest of the historian in 
the Scythian country. A right instinct lies at 
the bottom of this extended account; Herodo- 
tus must have felt a new world reposing there 
in germ. Modern Europe was at that time faintly 
sprouting ; the people who were to be the future 
actors in the World's History were struggling, 
seething in that vast region. The Aryan race in 
three leading stocks was doubtless there, the 
Teuton (Getae) the Slavonian (Sarmatae), even 
the Celt (Cimmerian, Geloni) in some scattered 
remains. Also Turanian elements were present 
both fore and aft; the Finn and the Lapp, and 
doubtless others, were being pushed into corners 
and byways, while the Tartar was pressing behind 
the Aryan races. A mighty cauldron of peoples, 
big with futurity, is this Scythia; our historian 
now has his face turned to what is to be, as in 
Egypt it was turned toward what has been, 
Greece being the present. 

(2) The first question is: ** What is the origin 
of the Scyths? How did they get to be? " No 
less that four accounts are given (5-15) one of 
which is historical and three mythical. 

The first is the mythical account given by the 
Scythians themselves, which starts with the first 
man, the Adam of Scythia, called Targitaus, 
son of Zeus and a daughter of the river 
Borysthenes. This is a suggestive genealogy, 
indicating that the Scythian is first a son of the 



BOOK FOURTH, 257 

God, the universal principle, yet also a child of 
the special environment, hinted by the Scythian 
river. Also that present of a plow, a yoke and 
an axe, falling from heaven, gives the first imple- 
ments of cultivation of the soil — truly a divine 
present ; likewise the golden bowl which the 
3^oungest son alone can handle, is what chooses 
him as ruler. 

The Scythians regard themselves as the young- 
est of peoples, in contrast with the Egyptians, 
who deem themselves the oldest; they are the 
youngest, whose career indeed belongs to the 
future. 

The historian Justin, citing another legend, 
says that the Scythians claim to be the oldest 
of peoples; but this legend of Herodotus is 
probably the true one, as it seems to be the 
appropriate one. 

Such is the Scythian mythical account. Next 
comes the Greek mythical account, which intro- 
duces the universal Greek Hero Hercules into 
Scythia, who has time there to beget three sons on 
a native woman, half human, half serpent, repre- 
senting man still in his natural state, to whom 
Greek civilization is brought ; the result is a new 
race and order. Such a legend, we must think, the 
Greek colonies of the Euxine framed, giving a 
reflection of themselves and of the Greco- 
Scythian spirit. Another phase of Hercules, 
the Greek hero of culture, putting down Geryon 

17 



258 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

and CacLis, and many other barbaric monsters, 
we see here. 

The thh'd account tells of migrations, and does 
not seek to give the origin of the Scythians, but 
narrates how they came to their present localit}^ 
They were once in Asia and were harassed by 
the Massagetae, when they started westward, 
impinging upon the Cimmerians and driving them 
on before. A dark tradition of old Aryan move- 
ments from the heart of Asia would seem to lie 
in this statement, as if Celts (Cimmerians) were 
fleeing before Scyths, and Scyths were fleeing 
before Goths (Massagetae). 

The fourth account is the work of a known man, 
a poet, Aristeas, being told in a poem, and is a 
conscious handling of the mythical element, using 
the same with the historical element. This poet 
starts the wave in the far North at the line of 
the Hyperboreans and the gold-guarding Griffons, 
where the one-eyed Arimaspians dwell ; the latter 
tribe first impinges upon the Issedones, the 
Issedones upon the Scythians, and the latter 
upon the Cimmerians. The poet thus has his 
natural and supernatural forces, the latter start- 
ing and propelling the former. 

Thus our historian neglects no side of human 
consciousness, deeming the mythical statement 
a phase of spirit as well as the purely historical. 

The modern reader must learn to sympathize 
with him, to see something in all these state- 



BOOK FOURTH. 259 

ments, of which the first two accounts for origin, 
the second two for migration. The first is a 
Scythian agricultural legend, the second is 
Greco-Scythic legend of colonization and cul- 
ture. The first three are popular in origin, the 
last is individual, the work of a poet. 

(3) Now we are to have the account of Herod- 
otus, which in most respects is a reverse way to 
that of Aristeas. The historian besfins with the 
fact, with Greek port of Borysthenitae, which 
he doubtless visited, and he passes gradually 
from the actual to the fabulous tribes. First are 
the Callipedae, ** a Greco-Scythic race." Then 
follow agricultural people, till we came to a great 
desert beyond which to the North the Andro- 
phagi (Cannibals) dwell, who are non-Scythian. 
Beyond the river Tanais, to the East, dwell the 
Sarmatae, non-Scythian, usually supposed to be 
Slavic. 

Having gone beyond the bounds of Scythians 
proper and their neighbors (the Sarmatae) we 
begin to enter a semi-mythical region. Here 
dwell men ** bald from their birth " (23) with 
other peculiarities ; an ideal realm is located in 
this land of fable, where no man receives any 
wrong, and where the people live chiefly from 
the fruit of a tree, in a kind of paradisaical inno- 
cence. Beyond " the bald men " lies the uncer- 
tain, the unknown, hence the fabulous ; here are 
countries inhabited by goat-footed men, actual 



260 THE FATHEIi OF HISTORY. 

satyrs ; then come people who '* sleep six months 
at a time," manifestly a hint of a polar region 
(25). On a line to the east of '* the bald men " 
are the Issedones, a tribe well-known; but to the 
north of this tribe is again the unknown and 
the fabulous, in which are placed the one- 
eyed Arimaspians and the gold-guarding Griffons. 
Far up in this northern country are the Hyper- 
boreans, with whom Greek les^end has inter- 
twined itself in a variety of ways, whereof our 
historian gives quite a lengthy specimen (32—36). 
We can now bring before our minds the gen- 
eral conception of Herodotus in regard to Scythia. 
In a later chapter he speaks of the square which 
the Scythian country forms (101); this also we 
may take into our view. We are to note the 
gradual approach from the real to the imaginarj^, 
from the historical to the fabulous, as we pass 
from the known to the unknown. (1) The Hel- 
lenic colonies, the civilized border, lying on the 
sea-coast or not far from it. Here all is real, 
natural, historical. (2) The Scythian square, 
whose southern line rests on the sea, and so is 
one with the line of Greek colonies; then it 
sweeps inward for four thousand stades (450 
miles), passing from Greeks, through Greco- 
Scythian peoples to complete barbarism, and 
from the well-known, through the less known to 
the unknown. (3) Beyond the square is the 
advance into the mythical region, which is the 



BOOK FOUBTH. 261 

unknown or what is known only by hearsay 
(25-27). Thus, as we recede from the Greek 
world where all is clear and known, we come 
to the fabulous world, beyond the Rim of 
the Barbarians, quite like what we saw to 
the south of Egypt in the previous Book. 
Still another bound, the circumfluent ocean, 
was placed beyond the Hyperboreans by 
Hecataeus and others, but this is rejected by 
Herodotus "with a smile" (36). Fableland 
becomes actual in what is distant on Earth, and 
extends, without the interruption of even a 
fictitious sea, into the unknown. Nor should 
we foro^et that lesfend of the air filled with 
feathers, common in northern Mythology, and 
hinting the snow storm. Note too the story of 
Abaris, the Hyperborean, who carried an arrow 
'* around the whole earth without eating any- 
thing." 

Our historian as^ain has surrounded his civil- 
ized world with a cordon of fable. The same 
conception essentially is found in Homer's 
Odyssey. When Ulysses is driven by the storm 
out of the known limits of Hellas, he comes to 
a Fableland in which dwell the Lotus-eaters, 
Polyphemus, Circe, and many other fabulous 
beings. In like manner, when he returns to 
Hellas in its known parts, such as Ithaca, these 
superhuman forms vanish more and more into 
human actors. 



262 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

(4) Herodotus now takes occasion to insert an 
excursus on the geography of the globe, appar- 
ently being led thereto by the story of Abaris 
which suggests the rotundity of the earth (36). 
It is generally held that he must have had a map 
before him in the following description-. 

He is aware of the triple division, into Europe, 
Asia, and Libya, but does not know who made 
it, or why it was made, and is decidedly inclined 
to deem it inappropriate. He prefers the dual 
division of the world, connecting Egypt espe- 
cially with Asia. The reason for this prefer- 
ence is not so much geographical as spiritual ; it 
manifestly springs from his conception of the 
great conflict which he is recording, that between 
Asia and Hellas. This is the fundamental dual- 
ism of the world according to Herodotus, and 
for his ao^e it was doubtless the rio^ht view. 

Accordingly he runs a line of division between 
Europe and Asia, which line embraces the Med- 
iterranean Sea on through the Propontis and the 
Euxine to the river Phasis, from which the 
boundary is continued by the Caspian Sea and 
the Araxes into the unknown. Thus the earth 
is divided into two halves, the northern (or 
Europe) and the southern (Asia and Libya). 
Now it was the latter which was consolidated by 
Persia and thrown against Greece, which was 
then verily the new world, and represented 
dawning Europe and the future. 



BOOK FOURTH. 263 

It is interestinsf to note that the historian tries 
to give some faint glimpse of the Eastern boun- 
dary of Persia. He mentions the voyage of Scylax 
(44) down the Indus, '' the second river that 
produces crocodiles," and the safe arrival of the 
navigator at the port of the Red Sea *' in the 
thirtieth month." After the voyage "Darius 
subdued the Indians and used this sea." Per- 
sian arms did not apparently penetrate to the 
valley of the Ganges, but probably subdued 
the Punjaub. 

Of these early voyages the most extensive 
doubtless was the circumnavigation of Africa 
twice, once by Phoenician and once by Cartha- 
ginian sailors, each going in opposite directions 
(41-3). Here occurs the striking sentence: 
these Phoenician sailors after their return re- 
lated "what to me does not seem credible, but 
may to others, that, as they sailed round Libya, 
they had the sun on their right hand." This 
statement, so dubious to the historian, is now 
the strongest proof of the circumnavigation. 
So those old Semitic sailors — Phoenician and 
Carthagnian — anticipated Vasco de Gama in 
doubling the Cape of Good Hope. Striking 
is the contrast with the Persian attempt made 
apparently with Egyptian sailors (43), which 
attempt did not succeed. 

To a certain extent we see Herodotus in these 
geographical matters quite behind the most 



264 THE FATHER OF HISTOBT. 

advanced views of his time. He does not believe 
in the rotundity of the earth, nor in the circum- 
ambient ocean, nor in the tripartite division of the 
continent ; it is manifest that bis mind was on tlie 
grand dualism between Orient and Occident, the 
Persian Empire and Hellas. 

(5) The many rivers of Scythia roused the 
historian's interest, and he devotes to them quite 
a section here (47-58). Personally he could 
not have investigated these streams, the result is 
that his account has many mistakes of detail . Of 
all the most important was the Ister ( Danube ) , 
which he again compares with the Nile, as he did 
in his Egyptian Book (H. 33). He conceived 
the two as counterparts, the one in the northern 
half of the earth, the other in the southern half, 
showing numerous contrasts one with the other. 
The Nile has no visible tributaries, the Ister has 
many along its whole course; the one is known, 
the other is unknown in origin. 

( 6 ) A few chapters are now devoted to the 
social life of the Scythians (59-75) — to the 
relio^ion, customs, etc. It is a kind of summarv 
of barbarous life, as nearly all rude peoples have 
these or similar customs. In matters of religion, 
the historian translates their crude deities into 
corresponding names of Greek Gods; Hestia, the 
hearth, is the chief, in her the family center is 
conceived ; the others are more or less nature 
deities. No temple, altar or image for other 



BOOK FOUBTH, 265 

deities, except Mars; the savages must have 
their war-god, whose image is an old iron 
scimiter, to which many sacrifices, human and 
animal, are made. 

The Scvthian drinks the blood of his slain foe, 
and cuts off the head as a present to the king ; 
he scalps his enemy and uses the scalp as a nap- 
kin, or sews a number of them together as 
articles of dress. He makes the skull of his foe 
into a drinking cup. (Compare the Teutonic 
Valhalla.) 

The divining rod and the sooth-sayers are 
here, the latter are burned if they tell false. A 
pledge or contract involves the exchange of 
blood in some form, like that of Faust and 
Mephistopheles. 

The burial of a dead king brings with it a 
revolting sum of barbarities. One of his con- 
cubines and his household servants must go 
along to provide for him beyond; so they are 
slain on his grave. After a year's time fifty 
youths, beautiful, select, are strangled, and fifty 
horses are impaled and fixed as if rearing, while 
on them are placed the fifty corpses of youths in 
a circle round the grave, evidently his body- 
guard beyond. 

Most of these cu^oms have been traced 
among the Calmucks and Tartars of Southern 
Russia of the present time, from which fact it 
has been inferred these Scythian peoples of 



266 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

Herodotus were Turanian. But such rites and 
beliefs belong to all savage peoples — in Africa, 
in America, as well as in Asia. The first concep- 
tion of immortality is that death is the change to 
the same kind of life beyond ; the king will want 
his horse, meat and drink and his attendants, 
even his palatial tomb. Hence these sacrifices 
and monuments. 

(7) The fates of two Scythians who sought to 
introduce Hellenism into their native land are 
now told (7G— 80). The first is Anacharsis, a 
famous man among the Greeks, as traveler and 
wise man, who traveled over the world and 
accepted Greek religion, custom and thought. 
He perishes while celebrating the rites of a 
Greek Goddess, Cybele. The second is Scylas, 
who became king of a Scythian tribe, and 
caused a revolt of his people through his 
initiation into the Bacchic mysteries. 

Thus we may affirm a strong conflict in the bar- 
barous tribes of Scythia with the incoming Greek 
civilization. Such a conflict alwavs rises on the 
• border. The American Indians are divided into 
two parties on the same lines; the one party 
will accept the civilizing tendency and will be 
'* the friend of the white man," the other party 
will remain barbarian and cling to the customs 
of the ancestors, fi«htino^ to the death the new 
idea. The Creek Indians not lons^ asro had a 
civil war on this question. 



BOOK FOURTH. 267 

To these two Scythian characters, Anacharsis 
and Scylas, we may add the Thracian Zamolxis 
of the Getae (94), who evidently was a teacher 
of his people, teaching them chiefly the doctrine 
of immortality, along with Greek civilization. 
He is connected with Pythagoras, the great 
teacher of Greece, " the first pedagogue." The 
scheme of an undergromid chamber may be dis- 
missed as the clever explanation of a smart Greek. 
So Zamolxis was a kind of missionary. 

These three cases were of natives who brousfht 
Hellenic civilization into their own barbarous 
lands. But the Greeks, though hide-bound 
enough and vain, had their legend of the mis- 
sionary, not a man, but a woman, who goes to 
Scythia, to the land of the Tauri, and who is 
regarded as a Goddess there — Iphigenia, daugh- 
ter of Agamemnon. Euripides connects this 
story with the Trojan war in his famous dramas 
on the subject of Iphigenia. The Tauri are 
supposed to be Cimmerians by Grote, that is, 
Celtic, a remnant left in the^ Tauric country 
when the rest were driven out. Herodotus of 
course, gives no definite account of the Iphigenia 
legend or its purport (103). 

2. TJie Perisco- Scythian Thread. The Scy- 
thian expedition of Darius is next to be recounted 
(83-144). A general survey of the land and its 
various peoples has been given in the preceding 
narrative; we are now to behold the Persian 



268 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

monarch striking into the vast mass of barbar- 
ism and seeking to subject it to an Oriental sway. 
He fails, for such a result lay i)ot in the plan of 
the World's History ; the vast Scythian territory 
had to wait for its development ; indeed it seems 
to be still waiting. 

This entire section has the characteristic move- 
ment from the historical into the unhistorical, 
which fact we have already noticed in our histo- 
rian as he passes from the civilized world to the 
barbarous, from the known to the less known or 
to the unknown. The Rim of Barbary is the 
realm of fable ; we shall find that this expedition 
of Darius grows less and less credible in its 
details as it advances toward the North and moves 
into the nebulous borderland of civilization. 
The whole account has been doubted by high 
historical authority, but such skepticism is not 
discriminating. There was certainly an expedi- 
tion of Darius to Scythia; equally certain is it 
that many statements here recorded about it are 
open to question. 

In order to find the clue of the narration, we 
must catch the movement of the historian's mind, 
unfolding^ into his theme. We shall note that, 
as long: as he is dealinoj with the transactions 
which took place before the crossing of the Lster 
(Danube), he is historical both in the general 
outline of events and in the essential details. 
But when the expedition has crossed the Danube 



BOOK FOUBTB. 269 

and taken its plunge into the barbarious regions 
northward, the details grow more and more dubi- 
ous and unhistorical, thous^h the o-eneral outline 
is still true in fact ; that is, the advance of Darius 
into the country, the barbarian manner of war- 
fare by retreating and harassing the invader with- 
out coming to a battle, the final retreat of Darius, 
must all be considered as historical. When the 
expedition gets back to the Danube, it re-enters 
the domain of history, not only the general out- 
line but also the details must be regarded as 
real. 

In order to bring the preceding view into bold 
relief, we shall throw this account into three 
portions. First will be the advance of Darius to 
the Danube over which he builds a bridge — his- 
torical; second, is the movement into Barbary, 
which is also the movement and evanishment of 
the historical into the unhistorical ; third is the 
return to the bridge over the Danube, which 
bridge also leads back into the sphere of history. 
Such is the general sweep which will now be 
given in greater fullness. 

(1) The account of the expedition till the 
crossing of the bridge over the Ister has the air 
of truth, both in its general course of events 
and in its essential details (83-98). Darius may 
not have addressed " the men of Ionia " (98) 
in the words here set down, but there is no 
reasonable doubt that he left them in charge of 



270 THE FATHEB OF HI STOUT. 

the bridge. In accord with the manner of Herod- 
otus a warning is given to Darius by his brother 
Artabanus (83) against entering upon the un- 
fortunate enterprise ; in hke manner Croesus 
received a warning from Sandonis (I. 71), and 
Xerxes will receive a warning from this same 
Artabanus (VII. 10). The story of the father 
(84) whose three sons serving in the Persian 
army were slain by orders of Darius, because 
the father asked that one of them be allowed 
to remain at home, has its counterpart in the 
similar bloody act of Xerxes (VII. 38). When 
the king was personally serving in the army, 
he resented as the direst insult any request for 
release from military duty; such a request was 
evidently regarded as a crime against majesty 
(laesae majestatis). The measurements of the 
Euxine and of the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azoff ) 
here given (86) are not accurate, still these 
seas are a fact, and the general outline of their 
description holds good to-day. So it is with the 
events here recorded ; certain details are errone- 
ous, but the totality is correct in the main. 

The first bridge (87) built of boats over the 
Bosphorus by Mandrocles the Samian architect, 
is duly celebrated by our historian, whose stay 
at Samos and whose acquaintance with Samian 
affairs have been already noticed in the preceding 
Book. It is probable that Herodotus saw the 
picture here mentioned and read the inscription 



BOOK FOUBTH. 271 

here quoted (both being in the temple of Samian 
Juno) and likewise heard all about Mandrocles, 
some sixty years after the building of the bridge. 
The Samians of this period were famous builders 
and artists (see III. 60). 

The second brids^e is thrown over the Ister at 
the point where the river divides into several 
mouths, and the work is accomplished by the 
Greek sailors, who go by boat over the sea to 
the spot. This evidently was a construction 
requiring much less skill than the first bridge; 
the builder's name is not mentioned though it 
was probably Mandrocles. But this second 
bridge has greater strategic value than the first, 
being a pivotal point in the expedition, as we 
shall see later. 

Darius moves toward the Danube by land ; on 
the way he subdues the Thracian Getae, sup- 
posed to be ancestors of the Goths and hence a 
Teutonic people, who are here declared to be 
*'the most valiant and the most just of the 
Thracians." Moreover they believe themselves 
'« to be immortal, and, dying, to go to the divine 
Zamolxis. ' ' But who was Zamolxis ? Some Greeks 
said that he was once a Thracian slave of the 
Samian philosopher Pythagoras, and, going back' 
to Thrace, carried thither these strange traces 
of the latter's doctrine, which, in its turn, was 
derived from Egypt. Evidently the legend of 
Zamolxis gives some far-off adumbration of the 



272 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY, 

missionary who introduced a few Greek ideas and 
a touch of Greek civilization into the land of the 
Getae, and was afterwards adored as a God. 
Again the historian shows his knowledge of 
Samian men and things, though he must also 
have known of Pythagoras in Italy. 

At last Darius with the land forces reaches 
the bridge over the Ister, and is ready to take 
his audacious plunge into the vast unknown 
ocean of Barbary. He proposes at first to break 
up the bridge, and have the Tonians follow on 
land with the forces from the ships ; but Coes, 
the general of the Mitylenians gives him a warn- 
inof to secure his retreat in case of misfortune. 
The Persian monarch then bids the lonians wdio 
constructed the bridge to stay and guard it for 
sixty days ; after this time they could sail away 
to their country. Did Darius think of returning 
to Persia throuj^fh the Caucasus? He doubtless 
expected an immediate conquest of the Barba- 
rians, and was regardless of the more distant 
future; the lapse of sixty days would indicate 
his permanent hold on the country. At least so 
he seems to have thought. 

(2) After crossing the Ister, Darius enters 
Scythia, which is the object of his expedi- 
tion. An advance, a stop, and a retreat back 
to the starting-point make up the movement. 
The whole is a vain effort to strike some- 
thing where there is nothing to be struck — a 



BOOK FOUBTH. 273 

blow in the water which simply yields and then 
closes together again. *' We have no cities, no. 
cultivated lands," says the Scythian leader; they 
have no fixed habitations, not even houses, but 
live on wheels, moving about in their carts over the 
vast steppes, as the Calmucks do to-day. They 
are thus the absolutely movable, flexible, unseiz- 
able, which Darius is going to seize. 

We may first try to figure to ourselves the 
geographical features of the country. Herodo- 
tus conceives Scythiato be a square (^tetragonon) 
having four thousand stadia to each side (say 
450 miles). One side of this square rests on the 
Euxine from the mouth of the Ister to lake 
Maeotis; upon this line the square is built toward 
the north ( 101). Round this square toward the 
interior are grouped the peoples which are not 
Scythian ; on the east side of the square dwell 
the Sauromatae, the Tauri, the Geloni and 
Budini ; on the north side the Melanchlaeni 
(Black Coats), the Androphagi (Man Eaters), 
and the Neuri; on the west side the Aga- 
thyrsi. Thus our historian marks out his Scy- 
thian pale with definite measurements ; yet this 
pale lies outside his civilized pale already 
designated. 

Concerning all these nations beyond the Scy- 
thian pale he adds a few touches more or less fab- 
ulous (103-117). The Tauri, who offer human 
sacrifices to their Goddess, are connected with 

18 



274 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

the Greek legend of Iphigenia, Agamemnon's 
daughter, who is represented to have been borne 
to their land miraculously when she was about 
to be immolated by her father at Aulis. Evi- 
dently this is another story of the Greek mis- 
sionary, now a woman in barbarous lands, which 
facts the Greek Mj^thus did not fail of embody- 
ing. Euripides, a younger contemporary of He- 
rodotus, has given a dramatic form to the tale in 
his " Iphigenia in Taurus," which has had many 
reproductions (notably Goethe's). The Aga- 
thyrsi have their wives in common, *' to the end 
that all children born may be brothers and of 
one family " — which realizes an idea advanced 
by Plato in his Republic, this philosopher being 
also a younger contemporary of the historian. 
The intermino^lino^ of the Budini and the Geloni 
is suggestive; the former are savages, nomads, 
who paint their bodies and live on vermin ; the 
latter dwell in cities (Gelonus), till the soil, eat 
corn, and differ from the Budini both in shape 
and complexion; a primitive and an advanced 
people are inhabiting the same land. Into the 
account of the Sauromatae the legend of the 
Amazons is interwoven; thus only can be ex- 
plained the position of women in that tribe. In 
such fashion the Greek historian introduces the 
Greek Mythus among the barbarous nations out- 
side of the Scythian pale ; some of the Greek 
Gods are also found there, and one of these 



BOOK FOUBTH. 275 

peoples, the Geloni, are declared to have been 
originally Greeks (108). 

There is no complete unity of all these scat- 
tered tribes against the attack of Darius, still he 
can take nothing where there is nothing to take. 
Individuals he can capture, but there are no fixed 
abodes, no settled habits of life. Striking is 
the resemblance of this campaign of Darius to 
the campaign of Napoleon in the same general 
locality twenty-three centuries later. The enemy 
are mounted, but will not come to an open fight; 
they hover on the flanks, harass, waylay, Cos- 
sack-like ; the Budini and Geloni set fire to their 
own capital city, quite as Moscow was burnt. 
Darius begins to throw up forts for quarters, 
but concludes to make a retreat, which is also 
disastrous; the Scythian horsemen likewise 
wheel about and follow up their old tactics. 

Darius had repeatedly demanded of the 
Scythians earth and water, symbols of sub- 
mission. In their turn the Scythians send a 
bird, a mouse, and a frog, with five arrows to 
the Persian king; what does such a message 
mean? A double interpretation is given, one 
implying submission, the other quite the reverse. 
At last the opinion of Gobryas prevailed, which 
ran as follows : '' Unless ye, O Persians, become 
birds and fly into the air, or become mice and 
hide yourselves in the earth, or become frogs 
and leap into the ponds, ye shall never return 



276 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

home, but be stricken with these arrows." Such 
was this symbolic play, evidently a product of 
Greek fancy, playing a variation on the well- 
known Persian symbols of earth and water, yet 
imaging the great emergency of Darius. 

(3) The bridge at the crossing of the Ister 
again begins to appear in the narrative (133), 
and we feel once more that a fresh historical ele- 
ment starts to show itself. Some Scythians 
arrive and confer with the lonians in charge of the 
bridge, exhorting them to leave when the sixty 
days have passed. Meanwhile the Persian re- 
treat evidently becomes a flight ; the Scythians 
now draw up in line of battle (134), but the Per- 
sians decline the challenge, and slip awaj^ in 
stealth by night. 

Again the Scythians appear at the bridge and 
begin to reproach the lonians for staying so long 
on guard, as their term of sixty days had already 
expired. Here the Greek begins to show him- 
self, the dualism which is later to develop into 
revolt appears. A consultation is held ; His- 
tiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, saves the bridge and 
the Persian army, since he saw in the power of 
Darius his own safety and that of the other 
tyrants; "every one of us holds his own city 
through Darius." But Miltiades, the Athenian, 
who was "tyrant of Chersonesus," gave the 
opinion that "they should comply with the re- 
quest of the Scythians, and free Ionia." Mark 



BOOK FOUBTH. 277 

this Miltiades, we shall hear of him later at the 
battle of Marathon. Now he is *' a tyrant," 
holding one-man power over a Greek city, yet 
voting *'to free Ionia." The only person then 
in authority who gave such a vote, standing quite 
alone : ** all went over to the side of Histiaeus." 
The author at this point publishes the roll of 
Greek tyrants, who in such a crisis refused to 
undo the Persian and **to free Ionia"- — evi- 
dentl}^ a kind of black list, with names forever 
accursed and detested by every patriotic Greek. 

So the two sides have risen to light, each with 
its prominent representative ; both men will yet 
have a history. The heroic man who is destined 
to give to Persia her first great defeat in the West 
now steps forward and takes his stand as the 
grand protagonist of Greek freedom ; already at 
the bridge over the Ister he shows the spirit 
of Marathon. Histiaeus, however, deceives the 
Scythians by a cunning Greek trick and saves 
Darius aloncr with the remnants of his armv. 

Such is the prophetic incident foreshadowing 
much to come. 

D9,rius hurries back to Persia, somewhat as his 
son Xerxes will do hereafter upon witnessing the 
battle of Salamis. An inglorious expedition; still 
he leaves behind him his general, Megabyzus, 
apparently his most trusted officer, who conquers 
the Greek colonies and Hellenized peoples in the 
north around the Propontis. This is an impor- 



278 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY, 

tant conquest, it opens a path for the Persian 
into Europe, which he will take rather than sail 
across the sea. Miltiades was probably driven 
out of the Chersonesus in the course of this con- 
flict and returned to Athens, where he wnll take 
ample revenge, doubtless using his experience in 
Persian warfare to train the Athenians. Thus 
Darius has obtained a foothold in Europe, and 
the Orient has taken a decided step in advance 
toward the great struggle which is approaching. 
In the present section the historian being of 
Doric stock, appears to show some of the deep- 
rooted prejudices of his tribe against the lonians. 
There is an evident ironical tinge in what he says 
about ''the Ionic mode of life " ( as contrasted 
with the simpler and sterner Dorian) as well 
as about " the more refined manners " of the 
lonians (95). Pythagoras, the Samian sage (the 
Samian^ were Ionic) beseems to regard as a kind 
of charlatan who taught Zamolxis to bamboozle 
the imiorant Thracians into believins^ that he was 
immortal, through the trick of vanishing and 
staying in an underground habitation for three 
years and then reappearing. But in the 
reproaches of the Scythians to the lonians for 
not breaking up the bridge, the tone becomes 
one of acrid sarcasm : *' the lonians, when free, 
are the basest and most cowardly of all men, 
but when slaves, are the most servile and obe- 
dient." Certainly the voice of historian mingles 



BOOK FOUBTH. 279 

in this stinging rebuke ; still we must recollect 
that Miltiacles and the Athenians also belonged 
to the Ionic tribe. It is likewise probable that 
Herodotus during his visit to the Euxine may 
have heard from living lips these reproaches ; 
for the Scythians, after the defeat and flight of 
Xerxes, would naturally claim that they would 
have whipped the Persian worse than the Greeks 
did, had it not been for those cringing, lying 
slaves, the lonians, who kept the bridge for the 
escape of Darius, after giving their promise to 
return home. Clearly the historian has his 
secret pleasure in the taunt, though he puts it 
into the mouths of the Scythians. 

Some of the most distinguished modern 
writers, who have reviewed this account of 
Herodotus, have agreed in regarding the expedi- 
tion of Darius as incredible (Grote, Thirlwall, 
Niebuhr), But we believe this can be shown to 
be an undiscriminating skepticism. That there 
are fictitious elements in the narrative must be 
granted; but these can be separated from the 
historic kernel by the careful student. We have 
already noted that it is the Herodotean manner 
to weave around the reality a garb of fiction, 
and that, as our historian moves towards the 
bounds of his world, he becomes more and more 
mythical. The rejection of the Scythian ex- 
pedition carries with it the rejection of the 
Libyan and the Aethiopian expeditions. Nobody 



280 THE FATHEB X)F HISTORY. 

will say that all the details in each of these cases 
are true ; the outline is true and can be distin- 
guished from the fictitious. To be sure there 
are some special events in regard to which the 
boundary between historical and unhistorial can- 
not be laid down. The discriminating reader 
will, therefore, make three gradations in the 
narrative: the certainly historical, the uncertain, 
and the certainly fictitious. Moreover we must 
compare Herodotus with himself, and seek to 
discover his law ; then we shall find that this 
Scythian expedition is not isolated in its treat- 
ment, but is harmonious with other parts of his 
history, and, more deeply still, is harmonious 
with his spirit, with his historic consciousness. 

Certain improbabilities on physical grounds are 
often alleged in regard to the expedition. For 
example, it is claimed not to be likely that the 
Persian army could cross such large rivers as the 
Don, Dnieper, and the Bog, which are found in 
southern Russia (Scythia). But it is certain 
that the Persian armies of Asia knew how to 
cross the even larger rivers of their own domains, 
such as the Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and must 
have had a good deal of experience in the matter. 
Again, it is affirmed to be improbable that the 
Persian army could transport or find sustenance 
for such a large body of men and animals in its 
long march over the steppes of Scythia. Still 
Oriental armies of large numbers have crossed 



BOOK FOUBTH, 281 

the vast deserts of the Orient, where there was 
not even vegetation or water. Doubtless Persian 
generals knew what measures to take in such an 
emer^yency. Thus the two chief physical im- 
probabilities vanish, on examination, into their 
opposite. (See Rawlinson's Translation of 
Herodotus, note to Chap. 142 of the present 
Book). 

II. 

We now come to the counterpart of the Persian 
expedition against Scythia, namely, the Persian 
expedition against Libya (Africa), which takes 
up the rest of the Book (145-205). The move- 
ment of this portion is essentially the same as 
the preceding ; each is seen to be harmoniously 
adjusted to the other in structure, and the 
fundamental thought is one. The Persian 
strikes against the outlying barbarous nations, he 
tries to beat down the grand limit of uncivilized 
peoples which hems him in. Moreover the same 
Greek element plays into the second portion as 
into the first, namely, the colonized Greek ele- 
ment, which has also in its way laid hold of 
Barbary. But in the last case there is an im- 
portant difference in treatment; the Greek 
thread of colonization is quite fully developed 
in the second portion, whereas it remains unde- 
veloped by the historian in the first portion, 
though it be present and active. 



282 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

There are likewise contrasts between the two 
portions. The one expedition is in the North, 
the other is in the South, Hellas lying in the 
middle, which fact suggested her own spiritual 
position and character (hinted in her apothegms, 
no excess, the golden mean). Her civilization 
lay between North and South, East and West, 
heat and cold, between extremes generally. The 
Scythian expedition was commanded by the king 
in person, the Libyan by the general of a satrap. 
This satrap, called Aryandes, directed his arms 
first against Barke, a Greek colony, but the his- 
torian says that this was but a pretext, and that 
the satrap intended to subdue the Libyans, *' as 
the greater part of the latter paid no heed to 
Darius " ( 167 ). The limit must be broken down 
in Libya also — which well accords with what we 
already know of Persian spirit. 

In this second or Libyan division of the Fourth 
Book we shall have, therefore, three divisions, as 
follows : — 

1. The Greek Thread, giving an account of the 
Greek colonies in Libya (145-167). 

2. The Barbaric Thread, giving an account of 
tribes and natives of Libya, with the physical 
characteristics of the country (168-199). 

3. The Persian Thread, giving an account of 
the Persian satrap's expedition against Libya 
(200-205). 

It will be observed that the last is treated very 



BOOK FOUBTH. 283 

briefly, while the Greek and Barbaric Threads 
are unfolded at some length. The reader will 
note the general symmetry of this second division 
of the Book with the first ; the one is structurally 
a repetition of the other, with the addition of 
the Greek Thread interwoven in the second 
division. 

1. The Grveco-Lihyan Thread. Already the 
fact has been remarked that the Greek element, 
which is treated of in connection with other mat- 
ters in the first portion, now receives a full and 
separate development. What caused this differ- 
ence of treatment on the part of the historian? 
What made him give such a detailed and distinct 
account of the colonization of Gyrene, while the 
important Greek colonies of the North are quite 
cursorily dismissed? Of course the reasons can 
only be surmised. It may here be noted that 
Herodotus was born in a Dorian colony, of Do- 
rian parentage doubtless ; in spite of his warm 
admiration for certain Ionic cities, as Athens and 
Samos, he had a strong undercurrent of Dorism 
in his nature, which often shows itself by his 
unfavorable comments on the Ionic character in 
general. Now the colonizing movement from 
Sparta through Thera to Cyrene was essentially 
Doric. It is also clear that Herodutus had some 
special source of information about this move- 
ment. Such information he may not have had 
concerning colonies northward which were largely 



284 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

of Ionic origin. Samos plays quite an important 
part in this account of Cyrene; our historian's 
stay at Samos must have furnished him with a 
number of facts, some of which have a personal 
and local stamp (152): 

But that which especially fascinated our his- 
torian in this account of colonizing Cyrene, was 
the part taken by the Delphic Oracle, which here 
assumes a more authoritative position than any- 
where else in the entire History. Only in the 
First Book in the narrative about Croesus is the 
Oracle as prominent, and there it is not so com- 
manding. The whole scheme of colonization 
seems to be directed from Delphi ; indeed we may 
say it is forced upon an unwilling though obedi- 
ent community. Herodotus loved and revered 
the Delphic Oracle in common with the whole 
Dorian brotherhood; he takes particular pains to 
interweave its influence and its responses into 
Greek affairs. With the Greek Pantheon as 
shown by Homer he evidently has not much sym- 
pathy ; to a certain extent he has broken with the 
old faith; his religious nature is, however, not 
by any means destroyed but finds expression in 
the oracular element; in particular the Delphic 
Oracle is his divine Providence, his Zeus. Thus 
we may in part account for the fullness with 
which he sets forth the present section. Nor 
should we forget that Herodotus probably had 
his oracular period which had its culmination 



BOOK FOURTH. 285 

when this section was written, and when he felt 
a stronof Doric influence. The Ionic influence 
was different, more of a free-thinking cast; we 
heard little about oracles in the Samian history of 
the preceding Book, and in the later Books which 
deal with Athenian history, the oracular element 
will be present, but in diminishing energy. We 
shall see what Themistocles did with a Delphic 
response. 

(1) The colonization of Thera by Greeks 
(14»5--149) is first told and is connected remotely 
with a famous legend, that of the Argonauts, 
whose descendants, the Minyae, come to Sparta, 
and are fraternally adopted into the Spartan com- 
munity; but they grow insolent, are thrown 
into prison, escape through a strategem of their 
Spartan wives ; part of them are taken by Theras, 
who is dissatisfied with his condition at Sparta, to 
help found a colony at Thera. This was an 
island of the Aegaean, most southern of the group 
called Cyclades, and had been settled already by 
the Phoenicians, whose settlement there was 
traced back to Cadmus, when he came westward 
in quest of Europa. Thus both the Greek and 
the Phoenician colonization is referred to a mythi- 
cal origin, which passes over into history; we 
observe asrain how Herodotus makes the historical 
rise out of the mythical. 

It is manifest that this colonizing scheme is 
the offspring of discontent at home. The leader, 



286 THE FATEEB OF HISTORY. 

Theras, once ruler of Sparta as guardian of his 
rojal nephews, '* thought it awful to be ruled by 
others when he had once tasted of power (147.)" 
The Minyae were in a kind of revolt; to those 
were added other people from Sparta, doubtless 
also dissatisfied. This colonization gave a vent 
for the discontented spirits of the country ; so it 
has often done since. Thera has in this way 
made the transition from a Phoenician to a Greek 
settlement, though much mixed in population. 

(2) The colonizing movement from Thera to 
Cyrene is next told (1 50-9 ) . The Delphic Oracle 
now enters with a persistent response, command- 
ing those in authority '* to build a city in Libya." 
But the order is not obeyed, the result is "no 
rain fell in Thera for seven years." Thus the 
Oracle punishes for non-compliance. There are 
two stories told about the matter, but both agree 
in showing that the purpose of the Oracle is to 
compel the Theraeans to colonize Libya. They 
were probably nearest to Libya of all those whom 
the Oracle might so authoritatively command ; 
they were Dorian, and came from Sparta, and 
hence were intimately connected with Delphi. 
It is evident, however, that they were very un- 
willing and strongly reacted from the enterprise. 
In the North, the East and the West, Greek 
colonies had been planted; the South, too, must 
not be neglected. Colonization was the Greek 
method of conquering Barbary, quite in contrast 



BOOK FOUBTH, 287 

with the Persian method. Herein the Oracle 
appears as the representative and promoter of a 
certain phase of Greek spirit, lashing the more 
backward communities to make them do their 
part in the new movement. Battus, the leader, 
and his colonists lose heart and come back to 
Thera from Libya, but are not permitted to land ; 
they return and settle on an island, Platea, but 
this is an evasion of the Oracle, which gives them 
no peace till they go to the mainland and found 
Cyrene. 

Such was the long wearisome struggle laid upon 
a Greek community by the Oracle for the sup- 
port of a plan of colonization. While the bar- 
barians began to be Hellenized, there was also 
conflict ; the natives did not calmly permit the 
new-comers to take their lands. The Libyans 
called in Egypt, which also had its jealousy 
roused by the new Greek community. The 
result was a war in which the Egyptians were 
beaten ; the Greek colonies of Libya assert them- 
selves against all enemies in that quarter till the 
Persian (Cambyses) appears. 

There is a passage (152) which probably hints 
the source whence Herodotus derived the details 
of the colonization of Thera and Cyrene. A 
Samian vessel left " provisions for a year " to a 
solitary remaining colonist on the island of 
Platea — *' from which act the Theraeans and the 
Cyreneans contracted great friendship for the 



288 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Samians." As our historian lived for a time, 
possibly more than once, at Samos, he had the 
opportunity of learning all about the history of 
Thera and Cyrene here given. Moreover his 
special interest was roused by hearing it with all 
the particulars, even with different versions of 
the same story — Greek fancy spinning itself 
around the historic fact, as usual. 

(3). From outer prosperity we pass to inner 
troubles which afflict Cyrene as they do every 
Greek city (159-67). The Oracle has specially 
helped the Libyan colony, which it apparently 
regards as its own fosterling, having published to 
all Greeks the following oracular advertisment 
on the occasion of an allotment of land : '' Who- 
ever comes too late to lovely Libya, will repent 
of his delay, the land having been divided." 
This division took place under the second Bathus, 
apparently some sixty or seventy years after the 
founding of the city, and greatly increased the 
population, as we see by the fact that the city at 
once could defeat the Egyptian army, and later 
could lose 7,000 heavy-armed soldiers without 
being undone. 

This success was soon accompanied by domestic 
strife, which began in the royal family ; some 
princes quarreling with their brother on the 
throne, quit Cyrene and founded Barke; which 
became an important town and long outlasted 
Cyrene. Revolt of the native Libyans followed, 



BOOK FOUBTH, 289 

and then war, the outcome of which was the 
slaughter of 7,000 Cyreneans. The king was 
murdered by his brother and this brother was 
murdered in turn by the king's wife. The royal 
family had an African strain of barbarism and 
cruelty in its members, through intermarriage 
with native princes. It is no wonder that we 
read of popular discontent with such rulers at the 
helm in a city which must have been Greek 
chiefly after the allotment of lands. Again the 
Oracle at Delphi is invoked, to which it is plain 
that the people naturally looked in the emer- 
gency; note that the Cyreneans, not the king, 
called in the Oracle, which commands them to 
get an arbitrator from Mantinea, a city famous in 
Greece for its good government. 

Thus Demonax is sent to Cyrene and makes 
what would be called in our time a new constitu- 
tion. He was probably the best fitted man of 
the period through personal character and talents, 
and therefore was selected by the Delphic wise 
men before the matter was handed over to Man- 
tinea. Then Mantinea was not Doric or Ionic, 
but Pelasgic ; its citizen would not be warped by 
a tribal connection, which no doubt caused part 
of the trouble at Cyrene. We see by his division 
into three tribes what some of the difficulties 
were ; he made one tribe of old settlers (Ther- 
aeans and their dependents), another of Pelopon- 
nesian and Cretans (Doric), another of the 

19 



290 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

Islanders (Ionic). The last two contained prob- 
ably most of the new-comers, who now obtained 
important political rights, which had before been 
denied. 

The king, on the other hand, is shorn of his 
political prerogatives, though he is retained in 
his religious capacity as priest (Rawlinson com- 
pares rex sacrificuhts at Kome and archon basileus 
at Athens in republican times). The king has 
also his allotments of land. This constitution 
has a decided democratic look, and shows that 
Cyrene was following the strong political ten- 
dency of the age. 

One king, the lame Battus, submitted to the 
new order during his life ; but after his death, his 
son and his wife make trouble. The son, called 
Arcesilaus, '* demands back the prerogatives of 
his ancestors." At first the two are defeated in 
an uprising; the son goes to Samos and collects 
a band of adventurers, while the mother, Phere- 
time, goes to King Euelthon, of Salamis in 
Cyprus, praying for help. The Delphic Oracle, 
too, is invoked, this time by the king, which 
now strongly encourages him, though it had 
before favored the people and caused the send- 
ing of Demonax. Probably the new constitution 
was too democratic to be acceptable to the Doric 
sentiment of Delphi, hence the change. For the 
Oracle does not merely prophesy, it is also 
directive. It bids the king, however, to be 



BOOK FOURTH. 291 

moderate after his return and '* not to bake the 
amphorae in a hot fm-hace," but the king, being 
successful in his attempt to return to Cyrene, 
with the characteristic cruelty of his house did 
'' bake the amphorae ;" the result was that he as 
well as ' ' the beautiful bull " ( an obscure desig- 
nation of his father-in-law Alazir, king of Barke) 
perished, as the Oracle had foretold. 

The Delphic Oracle has been invoked by both 
sides, and has interfered in favor of both sides — 
the people and the king ; also it has sought to 
keep both in the bounds of moderation ; evidently 
without success. The people, having obtained 
the power, used it to do wrong against others, 
according to an allusion in Aristotle (Pol. VI. 
2) ; in like manner the king, having returned to 
power, uses it for revenge, as we see in the 
present narrative. The Oracle is, however, rec- 
ognized, as a kind of medieval papal authority, and 
tries to hold the balance between both parties. 

Pheretime, the king's mother, stays at Cyrene 
after her son's departure, and exercises authority 
for a time; but she flees to Egypt after her son's 
death at Barke, and there invokes the interfer- 
ence of the Persian. Already the king, Arcesi- 
laus, had *' given Cyrene to Cambyses and 
imposed on himself a tribute (165)." In this 
fact we may see one ground of discontent with 
the royal family: it had handed a free Greek 
city over to the rule of Persia. 



292 THE FATHER OF EI S TOBY, 

2. Hie Barbarico- Libyan Thread (168-199). 
This interference of the Persian is the histo- 
rian's occasion for introducing his account of the 
barbarous peoples of Libya in correspondence 
with the account of the barbarous peoples of 
Scythia previously given in the present Book. 
Moreover the correspondence is carried still 
further : as the Persian intended to subdue bar- 
baric Scythia, so now he intends to subdue bar- 
baric Libya; thus the two acts have their common 
root in Persian policy, or in Persian spirit. It 
is true that Dahlmann in his Life of Herodotus 
has chosen to cast suspicion upon any such 
design of subduing Libya on the part of the 
Persian, but his statement is without any his- 
toric basis, wholly drawn from his inner con- 
sciousness — wherein he receives the approval of 
Rawlinson (ad loc). But the historian knew 
the fact and especially knew the Persian char- 
acter, of which the fact is but a manifestation, 
far better than either of his modern comment- 
ators. 

On the sea-coast of Libya at different places 
two sets of f oreio^ners had settled : the Greek 
and the Phoenician, the one represented by 
Cyrene, the other by Carthag^e. Besides these 
two cities of foreigners, were the native Libyan 
peoples, which the historian is now going to tell- 
of and to order after a fashion, which we shall 
try to set forth. 



BOOK FOUBTH, 293 

There are three tracts or zones of land extend- 
ing across Northern Libya ill parallel lines (181 ). 
First of these is the coast zone, then is the wild 
beast zone, finally is the sand zone. In general, 
this physical outline of Northern Africa holds 
good to-day. The three zones exist but not so 
regular and parallel as Herodotus seems to think; 
nature has her order but also she has her caprices. 
The second zone (here called the wild beast 
tract) is really a hilly country, whose product is 
chiefly dates, according to modern travelers. 
The desert of Sahara may in general pass for the 
third zone, though Herodotus hardly knew of 
its extent. The greatest modern geographers, 
Kitter and Humboldt, divide Northern Africa 
into three belts, somewhat after the fashion of 
our historian, with the correction of minor 
details . 

( 1 ) The beginning is made with Egypt, from 
which the account moves westward to lake Tri- 
tonis, giving the coast zone of peoples ( 168-80), 
all of which are nomads. But beyond these, to 
the west of lake Tritonis dwell the Libyans who 
are agriculturists (191-5). The name of this 
lake calls up a fund of Greek legend; the omni- 
present Argo sailed thither, and a Triton ap- 
peared to Jason, announcing that *' a hundred 
Greek cities would be built around lake Tritonis " 
in a certain case, which never came to pass, 
however* One of these Libyan tribes claimed to 



294 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

be descended from Trojan fugitives (191); a 
similar claim was afterward made for Romans 
and other Italians, and was elaborated by the 
poet Virgil. Greek story is evidently hiterweav- 
ing Libya ; Greek explorers had probably looked 
at the region about lake Tritonis as a suitable 
spot for extensive colonization ; an oracle had 
commanded the Lacedemonians to colonize an 
island in the lake; but the plan was never real- 
ized. It is interestino^ to note this outlook of 
Hellenic civilization on the African coast. 

(2) The wild beast zone is not very distinctly 
described by Herodotus, though he plainly desig- 
nates it as lying inland, beyond the coast line 
( 181 ) . But when he comes to tell about western 
Libya ( 191 ), he speaks of the region of the agri- 
cultural Libyans (the Maxyes) as abounding in 
wild beasts, thickly wooded and mountainous. 
Thus the western coast tract and the parallel wild 
beast tract seem to run together in his descrip- 
tion. In the main his account of the animals, 
huge serpents and physical characteristics of this 
region is correct, though it goes over into the 
fabulous in the case of " men with no heads, 
having their eyes in their breasts." He claims 
to have investigated the matter with the greatest 
care (192), he shows the scientific spirit, and it 
is interestins: to note the confirmation of his 
statements by modern travelers in the essential 
points. 



BOOK FOUBTH. 295 

(3) The next parallel band is the sand zone 
(181 ) which '' extends from Egyptian Thebes to 
the Pillars of Hercules," that is, from the Nile 
to the Atlantic Ocean. Here again the regularity 
is striking. " At intervals of a ten days' jour- 
ney over this sand ridge, are pieces of salt in 
large lumps on hills; on the top of each hill, out 
of the salt, a spring gushes forth, of water cold 
and sweet." Here dwell the men of the desert. 
The first of these stations, or oases, is that of . 
the Ammonians, where is the shrine of Jupiter 
Amnion, Jupiter with the head of a ram, which 
image penetrated Egyptian and even Greek 
mythology. 

Modern researches have shown that the state- 
ments of Herodotus in regard to the springs, and 
salt, and distances are based on fact, though not 
always accurate. He describes substantially a 
caravan route through the desert, passing from 
oasis to oasis. The general aspect of the coun- 
try, the salt houses, the peoples can still be 
verified ; even the Troglodytes, the cave-dwellers, 
very swift of foot, are pointed out in the Tib- 
boos, living in the mountain-caves south of 
Fezzan. The zone continues to the Atlantes, 
a people named from Mount Atlas near by; with 
which mountain the narrative enters the realm of 
Greek mythology, since Atlas is celebrated in 
the Greek poets (Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus) as 
the giant holding the pillars of Heaven. Thus 



296 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

does the actual run over into the fabulous on the 
borders of the world. 

It may be said that nature herself has a fabu- 
lous aspect in this part of the globe, and that 
, the historian had some provocation for lapsing 
into the mythical through the very form of the 
actual. The man in these regions approaches 
the animal, as the Troglodyte ; then the animal 
approaches man, as the gorilla and the chim- 
panzee; there is the small man, the pigmy, and 
the prodigious animal, snake, crocodile or lizard. 
The wonders of nature are real in this southern 
latitude ; while in the cold north they are more 
or less fictitious. Possibly it was through his 
Libyan and Egyptian experience that Herodotus 
came to believe that the extremes of the earth 
produce marvels. 

It has been already noted that the Greek cities 
have a tendency to become Africanized. The 
women of Cyrene, native and mixed, will not 
eat of the flesh of the cow, since it is sacred to 
Isis; nor will the women of Barke partake of 
swine's flesh — both pointing to customs like 
those of Egypt. The Greek colonists in many 
cases married native women, though the men 
were continually reinforced by newcomers from 
Greece. Particularly the royal houses of Cyrene 
and Barke show an African strain. 

On the other hand we observe everywhere 
graces of the Hellenizatiou of the indigenous 



BOOK FOUBTH, 297 

Libyan races. Just as in the North, the barbar- 
ous peopl-es of the South could not help being 
influenced by Greek civilization. Commerce led 
the way ; Greek trinkets were a training out of 
savagery, Greek art and Greek mythology found 
their way into the African soul. Especially the 
tribes along the coast manifest something of the 
Greek presence. 

But the greatest, most important and most 
celebrated city that ever existed in Northern 
Africa Herodotus gives no account of, though 
he alludes to it — Carthage. When he passes 
beyond lake Tritonis westward (191-5), he ap- 
proaches this city, but instead of a detailed 
description, he only cites what the Carthaginians 
say about some other countries besides their 
own. A plain avoidance of the subject; why? 
It tallies with his treatment of the Phoenicians, 
who colonized Carthage, yet he visited the cities 
of Phoenicia, and may have visited Carthage. 
The statements of Carthaginians are quoted as if 
he had heard them personally; where or how? 
Silence ; the result is that the distinctive Semitic 
thread of the world's civilization quite drops out 
of his history ; Judea, Phoenicia, Syria, Carthage 
have no adequate showing therein. 

The historian evidently visited Cyrene, he 
speaks of a statue which he saw there (II. 181). 
In this city he probably obtained a good deal 
of bis knowledge of the interior. Concerning 



298 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

the sand zone and its characteristics the natural 
place for information was Egypt ; doubtless some 
of the Greeks of Naucratis had made the journey 
by caravan, and would be ready to recount their 
travels to an inquisitive countrj^man. A guide- 
book also may have been accessible, and books 
of former travelers had been written for a reading- 
public . 

3. The Persico-Lihyan Thread (200-5). 
The Persian satrap Aryandes moves from Egypt 
against the Greek city, Barke, but his expedi- 
tion is intended to conquer the Libyans. Such is 
the general ground of the war, though a personal 
reason is also assigned, as usual — the revenge 
of a woman, Pheretime, who had fled to Egypt 
(165) on the death of her son at the hands of the 
Barkaeans. There she was a suppliant to the 
satrap, saying that her son had lost his life in 
consequence of his attachment to the Persians, 
whose policy was to support the tyrants of the 
Greek cities against popular government. Al- 
ready this son, when king of Gyrene, had given 
the city up to Cambyses, and had thereby with- 
out doubt caused a revulsion among the people. 
So the tyrants looked to Persia, and Persia sup- 
ported the tyrants (see the speech of Histiaeus, 
tyrant of Miletus, 137). In like manner the in- 
vasion of Scythia was attributed to a personal 
ofround: Darius wished to avenore the Scythian 
invasion of Asia. But such individual motives. 



BOOK FOURTH. 299 

even if they exist, play upon the surface of 
great events, which spring from a far deeper 
source. 

The Barkaeans fought bravely against the Per- 
sians, who, under the lead of Amasis (soon to be 
king of Egypt) were able finally to capture the 
city by a lying stratagem ; thus again those 
truth-loving Persians resort to falsehood and 
breach of faith. The conduct of Cyrene in this 
affair is exceedingly dubious ; perhaps she was 
willing to see a rival city destroyed — a too fre- 
quent Greek characteristic. When Barke was 
undone, Cyrene was eager to get the Egyptians 
out of her territory. The expedition on its 
march homewards was much harassed by the 
Libyans, and ended with little glory; even 
Pheretime soon fled back to Egypt, for she prob- 
ably did not feel safe in her own country after 
her terrible revenge, worthy of an African queen. 
She impaled her male enemies around the city, 
and, cutting off the breasts of their wives, hung 
them upon its walls. She did not, however, end 
her life happily ; see became diseased, and her 
body, while living, swarmed with maggots — a 
malady which afflicted other heroes of cruelty in 
antiquity (Herod, Sulla). ''Hateful to the 
Gods are the extremes of human vengeance," 
saith our historian in his moralizinsf vein. Both 



't-5 



son and mother get their own — wherewith the 
section ends. 



300 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

Those of the unhappy Barkaeans, who re- 
mained alive, were transported to Bactria, to the 
remotest country on the other side of the Persian 
Empire, where they inhabited a town called 
Barke, ** still down to my day" says the his- 
torian, over half a century afterwards. Possibly 
Herodotus visited the town; he seems to have 
taken especial interest in those unfortunate 
countrymen of his who had been torn from 
Hellas and hopelessly transplanted into distant 
Asia, still retaining their language, and probably 
their customs and their worship. (See the case 
of Eretria, VI. 119.) 

Pheretime, in spite of her Greek name, shows 
her non-Greek tendency by not appealing to the 
Delphic Oracle in her emergency, but to the Per- 
sian power. Even her son had consulted the 
Pythia, and had received a favorable response, 
but when he had succeeded he did not obey the 
oracular warning. So she in this regard violates 
the grand precedent of Gyrene, both of rulers 
and people. 

The Oracle declares that there will be eight 
kings of this royal house (Battiadae), four by 
the name of Battus and four by the name 
of Arcesilaus (163). The chronology of these 
eight kings is not ascertainable to the 
year, but its general outline can be determined. 
Solinus gives the date 597 B. G. for the found- 
ing of Gyrene, Eusebius places it earlier, in 631 



BOOIi FOUBTff, SOI 

B. C. The latter date seems to be preferable 
(see Rawlinson, note to IV. 163). The follow- 
ing table furnishes an approximation : — 

Battus I. (founder of the city), reigned 40 years.. 631 B. C. 

Arcesilaus I. (his son), reigned 16 j^ears (159) 591 B. C. 

Battus II. (called the Happy — great increase in popu- 
lation) 575 B. C. 

Arcesilaus XL (trouble in the royal family — Barke 

founded) 555 B. C. 

Battus III. (the Lame — Demonax, the lawgiver) . . . 540 B. C. 

Arcesilaus HI. (refuses to accept the new constitu- 
tion) 530 B. C. 

Battus IV. (period of Pheretime as regent, king's 

grandmother) 514 B. C. 

Arcesilaus IV. (time of Herodotus) 470 B. C. 

The historian probably saw the end of the 
dynasty in his own day, and the fulfilment of the 
oracle. 



GENERAL OBSEBVATIONS. 

With the conclusion of the Fourth Book we 
have reached a distinct turning-point in the total 
History of Herodotus. We pass, gradually it 
is true, into a new stage of its unfolding; in a 
sense, all that is gone before is but a vast j^rep- 
aration for what is to follow. The conflict be- 
tween Hellas and Persia, between Occident and 
Orient, hitherto more or less latent, now becomes 
open, explicit, the plain, historic fact. 

Moreover, the work of Herodotus is divided 
into two parts very nearly equal at the line of 
separation between the Fourth and Fifth Books. 
That is, the first half of the work is done, the 
second half must next begin. It is well to observe 
this proportion even in the matter of quantity, 
for we have already noticed that our historian 
was thoughtful of it apparently in limiting his ac- 
count to Lower Egypt (Book II), and in omitting 
his entire Assyrian history (Book I). So we 
may take pleasure in this evidence of artistic 
(302) 



BOOK FOURTH. 303 

symmetry, conscious or unconscious, shown by 
the old historian. 

I. The Preceding Four Books. A. look 
backward at some of the leading points which 
have been brought to light, may now be taken. 
A certain unity we shall find in the first four 
Books considered by themselves ; certain impor- 
tant matters are concluded, while certain others 
begin or assume a new prominence. 

1. The Rim of Barbary has quite fully un- 
folded itself, and will hereafter almost disappear 
from the movement of the History, or be men- 
tioned in a subordinate way. Still it is implied. 
In the Fourth Book, as just developed, we saw 
in strong outline the demarkation of the Scythian 
Rim in the North and the Libyan Rim in the 
South ; in the previous Books he have taken note 
of Eastern portions of the Rim, and even of 
Western. This uncivilized Rim, surrounding 
the whole civilized world of antiquity, Greek as 
well as Persian, suggests the limit to that world, 
and its chief future conflict. 

2. We have witnessed, in the preceding Books, 
the dealings of the Persian with the barbarous 
border encompassing him on nearly every side. 
He, fretting against all external limitation, 
has sought to subject this Rim of Barbary, but 
he has been thrown back from it with violence 
at every point attempted. The entire series 
of Persian monarchs — Cyrus, Cambyses, 



304 THS FATHER OP mSTO^T 

Darius — have tried their hand in this business, 
and have had their bounds drawn against them, 
external primarily, but also internal. There 
remains the civilized bound, that of Hellas, 
about which will transpire the coming conflict of 
this History. 

3. A great movement of the World's History 
pertains to the treatment of this Rim of uncivil- 
ized peoples. The Greek knew the fact and 
called those outside of his pale by the name of 
Barbarians ; the Jew knew it also and designated 
the outsider as a Gentile; the Christian, despite 
his missionary spirit ( or possibly in consequence 
of it) still finds his Rim of Barbary in the name 
and fact of Heathendom. So the old Historian 
has laid down a line which has not yet vanished, 
and will not vanish for some time to come. What 
shall be done with the Barbarian (the Turk just 
at present) is still something of a practical prob- 
lem in Historj^ ; and the question, Which are the 
Heathen, has yet to be fully answered. 

4. In the previous four Books we have wit- 
nessed the growth and consolidation of the Per- 
sian Empire which has united under one absolute 
monarch the whole of Western and Middle Asia. 
The First Book showed us the rise and conquests 
of the founder, Cyrus ; the Third Book told 
of the addition of Eg3^pt by Cambyses as well 
as the subjection of Samos; the Fourth Book 
shows still further conquest and inner organiza- 



BOOK FOUBTH. 305 

lion tbrough Darius. Such is the Persian, or 
the movement of Persia, which, however, has 
taken phice inside the Rim of Barbary, from 
which the mighty empire has been thrown back, 
as from a vast wall of circumvallation: 

5. The result is, as already hinted, the grand 
conflict between Hellas and Asia has become 
sharply drawn, and the line of battle in a general 
way has been laid down. The two combatants 
have begun to array themselves along that line, 
which will indeed fluctuate, yet will become more 
and more distinct as the decisive time approaches. 
Both sides are conscious of the cominsf struo:o:le. 

II. The Following Five Books. The careful 
reader will feel that the movement from the Fifth 
to the end of the Ninth Book has a character 
and content of its own, though very intimately and 
organically connected with the preceding Books. 
The consolidation of the Persian Empire is com- 
pleted, there will be no more interweaving of 
Oriental peoples conquered by Persia. In fact, 
the distinctively Oriental portion of the History 
is done, the stress will be henceforth upon the 
Hellenic portion. To be sure, there has been a 
Greek Thread from the beginning, still it has 
been, on the whole, subordinate to the Oriental 
element; it was undeveloped, as Greece herself 
was not yet developed, but is now to be developed. 
Likewise there will be still an Oriental Thread, 
very important; Greece, however, is the center 

20 ' 



306 THE FATHER OF HISTOEY. 

of interest, and determines the whole historical 
character of the period, while previously the 
Orient was in the main the determining principle. 
Such is the transition, here to be noted, yet 
hereafter to be gradually unfolded into its full 
significance. 

1. The locality of the historical action is hence- 
forth to be essentially the same throughout, not 
scattered over Asia and Africa, and also over 
Greece, as has been the case hitherto. There 
is now a general movement of concentration, 
in space as well as in the thing to be done ; Per- 
sia is solidified, even the Greek States begin to 
show some signs of unity and co-operation. The 
place where the conflict is to transpire is getting 
marked out, and we begin to see the battle line 
between Orient and Occident drawn round the 
shores of the Aegaean. Also the contending 
forces are gradually taking their positions. The 
three grand acts of the coming drama, the Ionic 
Revolt, the battle of Marathon, the expedition 
of Xerxes show indeed the three unities of Place, 
Time and Action, to which may be added a clear 
defining of the principle involved in the conflict. 

2. Herewith the historic character of the work 
becomes more pronounced, the mythical ele- 
ment recedes into the background, though it 
by no means vanishes wholly. As the author 
comes back home to his Hellas, the center 
of intelligence, the consciousness of History 



BOOK FOUBTH. 307 

grows clearer and dominates his spirit; as he 
withdraws from ** the extremities of the world," 
from the distant in Space as well as from the 
remote in Time, Fableland with its twilight 
passes away before the rising smi of Greece. 
Still he would not be the Father of History, un- 
less he were so responsive to the mythical, imag- 
inative element which is antecedent to History ; 
thus he can construct a bridge in himself and in 
his work out of the prehistoric into the historic 
world, of which bridge we are perchance now 
passing the topmost arch. 

3. There is no doubt that the style changes in 
subtle correspondence with the change of the 
theme. There is still the love of the marvelous, 
but the direct historic fact rules the narrative, 
though the miracle is not left away. The Oracle 
has still its part, but it must be rightly interpreted 
by intelligence, especially at Athens. The pre- 
vious Books show more the traveler, the suc- 
ceeding Books show more the historian. Not so 
much a description of places and of tribes, as the 
record of events are we henceforth to have; the 
human deed is told, while the superhuman mar- 
vel hovers still around it, in a ghostly way. The 
main charm of the style is this naive responsive- 
ness to all the changeful hues shooting through 
the movement of a great epoch. 

4. We observe still the mighty necessity of 
the Persian to find his limit on every side. Bar- 



308 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

barism conquers him chiefly by its desolation, 
almost by its yielding passivity; but now he 
meets a people who are going to conquer him by 
their activity. That Persian people — what a 
task was put upon them and how faithfully they 
labored at it ! For they too had a national idea 
which fought valiantly for a place in the World's 
History ; that idea was somehow to realize the 
Universal in Space ; the infinitude of mind they 
tried to make actual by destroying every external 
limit. So they surge forth against every bound- 
ary, civilized and barbarous, trying to find the 
great boon, the Universal, outside of themselves, 
and therein fighting for their very existence. 
Desperate was their final attempt to obtain that 
beautiful Hellas, the future inheritance of the 
race. A small, poor, stony, mountainous coun- 
try ; what was it worth ? One cannot help admir- 
ing the right instinct of Persia in trying to get 
hold of this grand spiritual treasure; but she 
thought she could seize it externally — a great 
mistake. Thus little Hellas became the miHit- 
iest limit to Persia and the Orient, a limit 
of spirit, for in that petty, barren country 
had risen the principle of the Individual with 
his idea of freedom, who alone can resist 
the all-devouring Universal of the Orient. 
Nay, the Greek will begin to take up 
into himself that Universal, making it internal 
for all time in thought through poetry and phi- 



BOOK FOUETH. 309 

losophy, but politically and socially he will go to 
pieces in the process. 

But now we are to see Persia toiling at her 
problem with an enormous outlay of power, with 
a truly Oriental colossality in her endeavor. 
The Occidental reader very naturally sympathizes 
with Greece, almost to the point of patriotic fer- 
vor ; but let him also try to see that Persia as well 
as Greece was seeking to fulfill her world-historical 
destiny with untold labor and sacrifice; Persia, 
too, was fighting for an idea; this idea, likewise, 
we should understand, make our own, nay, sym- 
pathize with up to a certain point. Let us not 
take sides too ardently in this old war, lest we lose 
sight of the reality of the conflict; let us appre- 
ciate both contestants and behold in them the 
representatives of two world-historical ideas in a 
grand collision, both of which have validity, yet 
one has greater validity than the other. 

Greek spirit so dominates us still that the 
Orient fares badly on this side of that old battle- 
line. The greater effort is necessary to assume 
the attitude of world-judge, which is the stand- 
point of the World's History. 

5. In advance it may be hinted to the reader 
that he should be on the lookout for the structural 
elements in the following Books. Manifestly 
the Fifth and the Sixth Books belong together in 
one great sweep from revolt against the Persian 
through defeat of the Greek, back again to vie- 



310 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

tory at Marathon. Then comes a new and far 
larger oscillation, from invasion through defeat 
at Thermopylae to the victorious rise at Salamis 
and Platea; this is contained in the final Books — 
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. The full develop- 
ment of these structural hints will be given later. 



BOOK FIFTH. 

The expedition to Scythia has not been with- 
out effect upon the Persian. Through that 
humiliating experience he has learned one thing 
at least: he can cross into Europe on foot. A 
bridge of boats can be thrown over the Helles- 
pont as well as over the Bosphorus, over the 
Strymon as well as over the Danube. The Per- 
sian was no sailor. In his native land he was not 
called upon to grapple with the sea, to master it, 
to make it subservient to his ends. He had a 
terror of it, or at least no confidence in it ; he 
distrusted its billowy uncertainty, its infinite 
movableness. He distrusted likewise its chil- 
dren, those dexterous seamen, the Greeks. 

Hence it came that the Aegaean kept him 
hovering so long around its borders. Here was 
an element, hostile, unconquerable, or which re- 

(311) 



312 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

quired another kind of conquest tlian his kind ; 
water puts out fire, and the Persian was a fire 
worshiper. He went like a consuming blaze 
through Western Asia, but stopped at the border 
of the sea. 

Greek spirit was determined fully as much by 
the sea as by the land. Persian spirit was first 
halted, then rolled back, and finally overwhelmed 
bv Greek watermen. The Aes^aean is the ffrand 
Hellenic wall against the Orient, not only train- 
ing, but protecting its children. Three lines of 
relationship to it on the part of the Greeks may 
be marked out. First, it protected the cities on 
the coast of Asia Minor, being to them an inlet 
of sustenance in case of siege by land, as well as 
a means of escape in case of dire necessity. 
Secondly, it protected the islands, of whidh it is 
full, and which may be regarded as its spe- 
cial progeny. Thirdly, it protected continental 
Greece, being a mighty wall of water manned 
with floating defenders, whom the enemy could 
not reach by land. Truly it may be said that 
without the Aegaean, Europe and its civilization 
could not have been ; both would have been con- 
sumed in that Asiatic prairie-fire which was 
sweeping westward over the world just at the 
budding of Hellas. 

But the Persian has now learned of the path 
round the Aegaean ; he can pass into Europe on 
foot by bridging a narrow strait. Such is the 



BOOK FIFTH. 313 

grand point at present gained, which will lead to 
the expedition of Xerxes. The king will not 
have to trust that fickle, treacherous element 
of water, or but slightly trust it ; at least, it will 
not be his chief reliance, nor will its children, 
unsteady like itself, be his main help for reaching 
the new realm of conquest. 

Still, we may here premise, the sea will vindi- 
cate itself against the Persian, will not be cir- 
cumvented by him, but will overwhelm him with 
its waters, with its winds and rocks, and finally 
through the skill and streno^th of its children. 
The path round the Aegaean is not the subjection 
of the Aegaean by any means, and, after all, the 
Persian will be found to have made his journey 
afoot to Greece in vain. Salamis strikes the key- 
note, he cannot subjugate the sea even if he does 
the land ; the watery wall cannot be surmounted, 
this time at least, by the Oriental. 

The Persian has, however, discovered the way 
round, and is going to make the most of it. He 
follows on the track of the old Aryan migration 
into Europe, which must have crossed chiefly at 
the Bosphorus and Hellespont. For we still have 
to think that the Aryans, in their early move- 
ments, came from Asia into their European 
abodes, though this view has been stoutly as- 
sailed in recent years. The Persian, then, get- 
ting into this old road from Asia into Europe, 
begins to see the path leading toward Hellas. 



314 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

We are now to witness the preliminary fluctua- 
tions of the orreat conflict. The Persian will 
first seek to remove the obstacles northward in 
his road round the Aegaean, wherein he will 
easily succeed. Then will come a great reaction 
against him in the south, on the part of the 
people of the sea, who revolt, quite along the 
entire border between Asia and Europe. But 
these Asiatic Greeks will be put down, they 
are not the true bearers of the new world-idea. 
Meanwhile, however, its real representative is 
brouo^ht to lio^ht in the throes of the struo^s^le. 

The sweep of the Fifth Book will be best seen 
by dividing it into three masses, each of which 
has its distinct meaning, yet all stand in organic 
connection with one another. 

I. The Persian is occupied in conquering the 
lands and cities around the Propontis. The bar- 
barous peoples, of which a short account is given, 
and the Greek settlements in that northern 
region are put under Persian supremacy. This 
is the o^ettino: and the s^uardinoj the road round 
the Aegaean for the future (1-27). 

II. The longest of the three portions (28-98). 
A great many matters are introduced, but the 
setting in which all are placed is the Ionic revolt, 
or the grand reaction of the Greek-Asiatic cities 
and islands against Persian rule. More distinctly 
than before comes out the meaning of the con- 
flict; it is Orient against Occident, absolutism 



BOOK FIFTH. 315 

against freedom ; it is the grand protest of the 
new-born individual in favor of the rig^ht of 
individuality. Sparta and Athens, the future 
vindicators of this right, appear, not yet as 
involved combatants, though Athens sends 
ships, but as interested spectators, standing 
at present in the background and getting ready 
to participate in the mightier contest which is 
certainly coming. Athens, in particular, has its 
genesis into democracy unfolded, and is shown 
to be in the process of becoming the true bearer 
of the new movement, thouo^h at Dresent she 
withdraws from the conflict. 

III. The fight rages all along the line of what 
may be called the Greek-Asiatic border, dividing 
Orient from Occident, yet at the same time 
intermingling the two (99-126). From the 
Hellespont to the island of Cyprus, nearly the 
full length of the chain of Hellenic colonization 
to the East, is there an uprising against the hated 
Persian rule. But it is plain from the start 
that the revolt is doomed; its leaders are tyrants, 
and to pass from a Greek to a Persian tyrant, 
what is the gain? The principle cannot thus be 
won, and the World's History fights for a princi- 
ple, though individuals may fight for personal 
ends. So Athens retires, her time is not yet 
come; indeed how can she shed her blood for 
tyrants, the like of whom she has recently ex- 
pelled ^ 



316 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

Such is the general bearing of the Fifth Book, 
which shows both the movement of Persian power 
toward continental Greece, as well as the pre- 
liminary conflict in the Ionic revolt. We shall 
now set forth more fully the heads above indi- 
cated, following the text of the historian. 

I. 

Darius, when he returned from his Scythian 
expedition, left a general in Europe, named Mega- 
bazus, who was expressly ordered to conquer 
both the barbarous nations and the Greek settle- 
ments in the Thracian res^ion. The leadino^ ob- 
ject of this conquest has been already stated : it 
was to get possession of a way by land into Greece 
and Europe. The Greek town Perinthus was the 
first one overwhelmed ** by numbers," after hav- 
ing shown itself ' * valorous for liberty. ' ' The Per- 
sian general then moved his army through Thrace, 
** subjugating every tribe and every city to the 
king, for such had been the latter's command." 

At this point the historian gives a brief account 
of the Thracian nation, which he declares to be 
"the greatest among men except the Indians." 
Several of the tribes are described in order, 
among which we may here notice the Getae, usu- 
ally held to be the ancient Goths, probably the 
ancestors of the present Teutonic race in part. 
We can observe in the historian the same tend- 



BOOK FIFTH. 317 

ency, already remarked several times, to lapse 
into the fabulous, when the extreme portions of 
the earth are supposed to be reached. ''Nobody 
can say who dwell north of the Ister (Danube), 
but it seems a desert tract and boundless*." 
Surely a realm for the imagination : *' The Thra- 
cians say that bees hold possession of those 
regions, and prevent people from going further," 
possibly by stinging them with cold. As we 
have had (see previous Book) a snow storm 
suggested by the air being full of feathers in the 
North, why should we not have another quality 
of such a storm hinted in a swarm of bees? The 
reader will not leave out of Herodotus this play 
of mythical fancy, since it is a native ingredient 
of the work. Of course the Persian general did 
not seek to penetrate into those distant northern 
regions again, but kept close to the line of the 
sea- coast and of civilization. 

The Paeonians, one of these Thracian peoples, 
were in part transported into Asia by command 
of Darius. Here we come upon a fact very in- 
teresting in the light of recent researches : some 
of these Paeonians were lake-dwellers, "inhabit- 
ing the lake " (16). Houses were built on piles 
over the water, and connected with the land by 
narrow bridges. Thus a village stands in the 
middle of the lake, and " the young children 
have a string tied to the foot to keep them from 
tumbling into the water." Many lakes in west- 



318 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

ern Europe show traces of having had similar 
dwellers, whose piles can often be seen at low 
water. The Swiss lakes in particular have been 
carefully investigated, and quite a fund of antiq- 
uities and facts brous^ht to lio^ht. It is opener- 
ally supposed that these lake-dwellers were a 
primitive Turanian people inhabiting Europe 
before the advent of the earliest Aryans, and 
were probably driven to dwell in the lake by 
their advancing enemies. A new Aryan wave of 
conquest now strikes these most ancient Euro- 
peans dwelling in Lake Prasias, but the general 
Megabazus is not able to conquer them in their 
pile-buildings ( Pfahlbauten), though he tried. 

The next nation which Megabazus acquires, is 
the Macedonians, a people semi-Hellenic, and 
claiming Greek kinship, still they give the sym- 
bolic " earth and water " to the Persian embas- 
sadors on demand. The latter, however, grow 
insolent, and young Alexander (ominous name 
for Persia) who is son to the Macedonian king, 
causes the entire seven with their retinue to be 
slain. One thinks this young prince prognos- 
ticates the great Alexander, who, nearly two 
centuries afterwards, had a final reckoning with 
Persia. 

Thus Megabazus has made a clear path round 
the Aegaean to the borders of Thessaly. One 
thing, however, stands in his way and excites his 
jealousy. Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who 



BOOK FIFTH. 319 

saved the bridge over the Danube, and thereby 
preserved the king and his army, obtained as a 
reward from Darius the rio^ht of colonizing and 
fortifying a town near the river Strymon in 
Thrace, which town stood right in the Persian path 
toward Hellas. The result is a secret accusation 
from Megabazus to the king, who evidently gets 
suspicious and by a stratagem has Histiaeus go to 
Susa, where he is detained in a kind of honorable 
captivity. The appeal of Megabazus brings out 
the ground of suspicion. ** O king, what have 
you done in letting a cunning Greek possess a city 
in Thrace, where there is plenty of wood for 
ship-building and for oars, with silver mines and 
a large crowd of Greeks and Barbarians ready to 
follow him in any enterprise? " Such was in- 
deed the real danger, a new maritime power was 
about to spring up on the line of the Persian 
march. 

Darius removed Megabazus also, and appointed 
Otanes in his place ; there was evidently trouble 
between the Greek tyrant and the Persian gen- 
eral ; so both are sent out of Thrace and Asia 
Minor. Otanes, the new general, pursues the 
same policy in the North ; he takes various Greek 
cities, and also the islands, Lemnos and Imbros. 
Indeed the plan seems to be to reduce all those 
Greek islands of the Aegaean which have not yet 
acknowledged Persian authority. The group 
known as the Cyclades have not yet submitted; 



320 TEE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

the largest of the group, Naxos, is first to be 
attacked. But herewith is coupled a wholly new 
turn in affairs, which leads to the Ionic revolt. 

II. 

The king had two, and sometimes three sets of 
ao:ents in the maritime districts of Asia Minor: 
the satrap, always a Persian; the tyrant, always 
a Greek in a Greek city; the military com- 
mander, usually a Persian. The matter was 
further complicated by two satraps, whose 
authority extended to the coast; one had his 
seat of government at Sardes, the other at Das- 
cyleium. The result was frequent conflict of 
authority between these various officials, as well 
as jealousies and much underhand plotting and 
counter-plotting . 

In general the Persian would be apt to 
distrust the Greek, whereof an instance has 
already been seen in the case of Histiaeus. 
At the same time the Greek would not fail 
to have a high opinion of' his services in 
the cause of the king. Did not the Greek 
tyrants save the Persian monarch and his army 
at the bridge over the Danube? Did not Greek 
architects make the two bridges, and Greek 
sailors man the ships in that expedition, of which 
the unsuccessful part was the Persian part? 
There was a good deal in the Scythian campaign 



BOOK FIFTH. 821 

to inspire the Greek tyrant with a lofty notion 
of his importance and power, and that Greek 
tongue of his would not fail to let the matter be 
known. Many shortcomings have been charged 
upon the Greeks all the way down the ages, but 
nobody has ever accused them of failing to blow 
their own trumpet. We can well imagine that 
Greek vainglory and boasting were not wanting 
to Histiaeus, and roused both suspicion and hate 
against him in the breast of the Persian author- 
ities. When hereafter he falls into the hands 
of a satrap, the latter will put him to death on 
the spot, without waiting far orders from the 
king, who would out of gratitude have pardoned 
him, if he had been spared, and even have con- 
sulted him on Greek affairs. 

A new name is now introduced (30), which 
dominates the present Book : it is that of Aristo- 
goras, successor to Histiaeus in the tyranny of 
Miletus, also the latter's son-in-law and cousin. 
Aristagoras well knew the Persian's desire of get- 
ting possession of the Cyclades, a very important 
station in the way across the sea to Greece. 

An opportunity of seizing Naxos, the largest 
and richest island of the group, presented itself; 
the tyrant at once communicated with the 
satrap Artaphernes at Sardes, who eagerly en- 
tered into the scheme, which was also indorsed 
by the king. 

A special general was appointed by the satrap 

21 



322 THE PATH En OF HISTOBY. 

for this expedition ; he was a Persian of the royal 
family, by the name of Megabates. Thus the 
Greek tyrant and the Persian general are brought 
together, with no clearly defined subordination 
of one to the other apparently ; the result is a clash 
of authority at the very start. Aristagoras 
releases a friend of his, captain of a Myndian 
ship, from a punishment inflicted by Megabates on 
account of a breach of discipline. The two, the 
general and the tyrant, come to high words about 
the matter ; the latter says with a strong assump- 
tion of authority: " Did not Artaphernes send 
you to obey me, and to sail wheresoever I shall 
command ? ' ' Here we see the difficulty set forth, 
a difficulty which is at present common in Asia 
Minor and the Islands. 

The Naxians are forewarned by the Persian 
general, the expedition fails, Aristagoras begins 
to meditate revolt. Also a messao^e comes from 
Histiaeus (pricked on the head of a slave in order 
to escape detection) urging the same measure. 
Aristagoras called together his partisans and con- 
sulted ; all concurred except one, Hecataeus the 
historian, who saw no hope of success in rebel- 
ling against Persia. The outcome will show that 
he was right; Miletus was not the city, nor was 
its tyrant the man, to head a great movement 
against Oriental supremacy. 

Still we must give the credit to Aristagoras 
that he saw what the conflict meant, and that he 



BOOK FIFTH. 323 

comprehended the spirit of the time. The world- 
idea fermenting thus early in those Greek com- 
munities was that of democracy. A revolt from 
Persia could only mean a revolt from one-man 
power, it would be utterly senseless to pass from 
a Persian to a Greek tyrant. Hence Aristagoras 
laid down his own tyranny at Miletus and '* estab- 
lished equality before the law (isonomia), in 
order that the Milesians might be willing to sus- 
tain him . ' ' Then he drove out other tyrants from 
the cities of Ionia; he even laid a trap and 
caugcht a lot of them too^ether in the Persian fleet. 
These he handed over to their respective cities, 
*' wishino; to do these cities a great favor." Thus 
Aristagoras, feeling the pulse-beat of the time, 
acted, and brought about a tremendous upheaval ; 
the movement, as we shall see, spread along the 
entire Greek-Asiatic line, from the Euxine to 
Cyprus. Such was the response of the popular 
heart against the Oriental and the Greek tyrant. 
But the most significant act of Aristagoras is 
his visit to Sparta and Athens, both belonging to 
European Greece, both tyrant-haters, yet each 
very different from the other. The historian 
will seize the opportunity to unfold this differ- 
ence which has already repeatedly appeared in 
previous Books. These two cities are really the 
object of Persian attack; they are the grand 
enemies of the Persian principle. Specially is 
this the case with Athens. 



324 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Sparta. When Aristagoras reached Sparta, it 
was under the rule of Cleomenes, who was of 
the senior or Eurysthenid line of Spartan sov- 
ereigns. The father of Cleomenes had two sets 
of children, from two different waives ; strong is 
the contrast drawn by the historian between 
them. Cleomenes was not of sound mind, still 
he was made ruler in accord w^ith rigid Spartan 
custom ; while Dorieus, born of a different mother, 
3^et legitimate, '* was the first of the young men 
of his age." Still there w^as little chance of the 
best man obtaining the sovereignty at Sparta; 
so the moon-calf was made king w^hen the 
worthiest was at hand and in royal line of suc- 
cession. Such is one marked difference from 
Athens, where the men who can do the work step 
to the front and give command. 

Aristagoras in his speech first appeals to that 
idea of freedom, which is now the common bond 
of all Greece, and which the Spartans as the head 
of the Greeks ought to vindicate against Persia. 
" I adjure you, by the Greek Gods, rescue the 
lonians from slavery, who are of your own 
blood." Then the speaker spoke of the wealth 
of the barbarians, playing upon Spartan cupid- 
ity. Finally he produced a map, pointing out on 
it the many nations along the road to Susa, the 
Persian capital. This map is a most interesting 
fact, suggesting the intellectual life of those 
Asiatic Greeks. The first map is said to have 



BOOK FIFTH. 325 

been made by the Ionic philosopher Anaximander, 
and to have been used before the time of He- 
rodotus by the historian Hecataeus. The earth 
was conceived as a plane, and this led more 
easily to making a picture of it on a plane sur- 
face. 

One unfortunate answer ruined the prospects 
of Aristagoras with the Spartan king. The lat- 
ter asked, how many days' journey from the 
coast of Ionia to Susa? Aristagoras answered, a 
three months' journey. That was enough ; at 
once the order came: ''Milesian guest, depart 
from Sparta before sunset." The thought of 
ofoino- such a distance from home was revoltino^ to 
the Spartan, the least enterprising and aspiring 
of the Greeks. Herodotus, the traveler, evi- 
dently has his furtive laugh in this passage. 
Aristagoras with his map and with his boundless 
ideas was curtly dismissed by Cleomenes ; his 
final attempt at bribery was also thwarted. 

In these outlines we catch something of the 
Spartan character, its backwardness, its igno- 
rance, its fixedness in it^ own limits. To be sure, 
Cleomenes is a little crazy, still he is a genuine 
Spartan, crystallized in the rigid Lycurgean disci- 
pline, unable to leave his native rocks. Now we 
pass to a city of quite the opposite character, to 
which Aristagoras next betakes himself. 

Athens, This may be called the new Athens, 
for she had been reborn after the expulsion of 



326 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

her tyrants, the Pisistratidae. The spirit begot- 
ten of that conflict has roused every dormant 
energy, and revealed her as the true leader in the 
approaching struggle with Persia. That new 
form of government of hers — democracy — is 
the first great breaking away from the paternal- 
ism of the Orient, and is the most important 
manifestation in Greek political history. She 
started that unfolding of the people's rule, not 
by any means ended yet. Athens is the typical 
Greek city, most Greek of the Greeks ; without 
Athens the rest of the Greeks would be little 
known and of little account. Here, then, democ- 
racy had its birth, and here are the fires at which 
it is always kindled afresh. In this sketch of 
Herodotus (55-97) is contained the unfolding of 
democratic Athens, its movement from a tyrann}^ 
to a popular form of government. Note also 
that Sparta is, to a large extent, the unintentional 
instrument of this movement. 

1 . The first thing here recounted is the Athe- 
nian movement against the tyrant Hippias. His 
brother Hipparchus is slain by Harmodius and 
Aristogeiton, the glorified tyrannicides in the eyes 
of the Athenian people, long celebrated in story, 
song, and plastic art. The historian gives 
quite a full account of these two youths as re- 
gards their ancestry, stating that they were 
descended from Phoenicians *' who came with 
Cadmus." It is one of the strange omissions in 



BOOK FIFTH. 327 

this history of Herodotus, that he has so little to 
say of this important people. But here is a 
notable paragraph: '* These Phoenicians intro- 
duced among the Greeks many other kinds of 
useful knowledge, particularly letters." 

Far more important was the influence of the 
Alcmaeonidae in banishing the tyrant of Athens. 
They built the temple of Delphi when it had 
been burned, and they were the chief influence 
which caused the Lacedemonians to make an 
expedition against him, the Oracle always bid- 
dino^ them liberate Athens. The first time the 
attempt failed, but the second time Hippias was 
expelled, with the help of Cleomenes the Spar- 
tan king, who is thus an unwitting means of 
Athenian freedom. 

2. The rise of the Athenian democracy at once 
begins, under the leadership of Clisthenes, who, 
however, has a long conflict with a rival, Isago- 
ras. The Spartans wish to undo their work, and 
their king makes two expeditions, but he is at 
last foiled. No doubt this Spartan opposition 
solidified and intensified the democratic spirit. 
Once in their desperation the Athenians sent an 
embassy and offered to make an alliance with 
the Persian, but the latter demanded ''earth and 
water," that is, submission, which the Athenians 
could not grant, having just gotten rid of one 
tyrant. 

Manv small troubles Athens has with her 



328 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

nejorhbors — Boeotians, Chalcicleans, Eo^inetans — 

O ^ ■'CD 

whereof the historian has thought best to give a 
good many details. They all show the city grow- 
ing strong, getting trained, preparing for a great 
fulfillment of its destiny. 

Finally Sparta returns and tries a third time 
to thwart the realization of Athenian greatness, 
actually proposing to restore the tyrant Hippias, 
who is brought from the Hellespont for this 
purpose. It is curious to see how Sparta has a 
presentiment of what is coming, and seeks to 
suppress in advance its future rival. But such 
a proceeding benefited rather than injured 
Athens, it was so entirely antagonistic to the 
Greek feeling of the time. Sosicles the Corin- 
thian voices the latter, making a speech (92) 
against tyrants, which wins the applause of the 
assembled confederates. Thus the enterprise 
goes to pieces of itself and Hippias returns to 
his town on the Hellespont (Sigeium). 

In such fashion Sparta sought to undo her 
action in expelling the Athenian tryant. But her 
whole conduct has only developed and strength- 
ened the democracy which she sought to destro3^ 
From the beo^innino^ she is made the unconscious 
instrument of the development of Athens. The 
rule of the people has become established, Sparta 
has compelled it to work. The petty conflicts 
with the neighbors have schooled the citizens and 
brought out their latent power. Well does 



BOOK FIFTH. 329 

Athens deserve the enthusiastic comment of the 
historian: *' The Athenians, accordingly, in- 
creased in power, and freedom shows, not in one 
instance only but in every way, what an excellent 
thing it is ; for the Athenians, when governed by 
tyrants, were superior in war to none of their 
neighbors, but when freed of the tyrant became 
by far the first * * * since each man was 
eager to labor in his own cause " (78). Such is 
the grand new incentive to the individual; his 
government is now for himself and by himself. 
To this Athens, as hereinbefore described, 
Aristagoras comes to ask for help, after being 
driven away from Sparta. He told again what 
he had already declared to Cleomenes, illustrating 
with his map ; he must have found in every way 
a more intelliofent audience. He moreover added 
that Miletus was a colony of Athens ; kinship 
roused simpathy. Aristagoras won his point; 
the comment of the historian upon this fact is 
peculiar: "It seems to be easier to hoodwink 
many men than one, if Aristagoras was not able 
to deceive Cleomenes, a single Spartan, but to 
delude thirty thousand Athenians." The truth 
is, however, that the Athenians were not hood- 
winked, they felt deeply the approaching contest 
with Asia, which the stolid Spartan did not ; the 
whole transaction shows that they were keenly 
alive to the great problem of the time, and were 
ready to meet it in advance. Accordingly they 



330 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

SGDt twenty triremes to Asia Minor, to aid the 
revolters, in what they deemed very justly to be 
their own cause. 

The fact, however, will have to be confessed 
that Aristagoras is not the man and the Milesians 
not the people to be the representatives of Hellas 
against Persia, of Occident against Orient. We 
observe that Aristagoras has not really laid aside 
his absolute power, he still does as he pleases in 
administering affairs, he shows no trace of ac- 
countability to his city or people. On the other 
handy the Milesians never won their freedom by 
expelling their tyrant, as did the Athenians ; they 
never wrous^ht out for themselves their democ- 
racy ; the result is they have' it not, or have a 
little of it, at the grace of their tyrant. Now it 
is probably for this reason that the Athenians, 
as soon as they found out the truth of the situ- 
ation, quietly abandoned the revolters and sailed 
home. Not a very noble or devoted act assuredly, 
still a prudential one; Miletus cannot win, or if 
she should win with Histiaeus or even with Aris- 
tagoras, where would be the gain? 

Looking back through this history, we observe 
that it is the third time that the question has 
arisen, who shall be the bearer of the Greek 
world against the Oriental? First was Croesus, 
himself an Asiatic, though partially Hellenized; 
also an absolute monarch, quite as much as 
Cyrus, who overthrew him (Book I). Then 



BOOK FIFTH. 331 

Samos with its Greek tyrant Polycrates comes 
between Greece and Persia (B6ok III), but is 
swallowed by the latter, since it belongs there. 
The third is now Aristagoras, who gave up, in 
appearance at least, his tyranical power, and 
placed himself at the head of Greek democratic 
aspiration, something which Polycrates did not 
pretend to do. A gradation we may see in 
these three events, a movement of the spirit of 
the time which is seeking to find or to develop its 
true representative. All the indications are 
pointing toward the Athenians as the people most 
fully imbued with the underlying principle of the 
age, and most responsive to its call. 

III. 

The last portion of the Book is devoted to the 
war ; the entire Greek-Asiatic border is ablaze 
(99-126). Sardes, the residence of the Persian 
satrap, is burnt, then the lonians retreat to their 
ships. The island of Cyprus, always a meeting 
ground between the East and West, was divided 
within itself, but its Greek inhabitants especially 
joined the revolt. Note that it is *'the tyrants 
of Cyprus," who wish to be free, that is, to be 
free of the Persian tyrant (109). Such an ex- 
pression indicates the character of the conflict as 
well as the fundamental reason why it cannot 
succeed. 



332 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

So the war rages along the line — Cyprus, 
Caria, Caunus, Miletus, up to the Hellespont and 
Byzantium. After the first shock of the revolt, 
the Persians rally and gradually get the better, 
though they meet once with a heavy repulse at 
the hands of the Carians. Plainly this battle- 
line is drawn in the wrong place for the Greeks, 
being in Asia essentially. But what is more to 
their detriment, the new idea is not pure among 
the revolters ; their leaders are tyrants, who, if 
victorious, will seize or keep the government, 
and nothing will be settled. 

Typical of the whole outcome is the fate of 
Aristagoras who is the representative man in 
this revolt. He gave up the cause and fled to 
Thrace, '* having intrusted Miletus to Pytha- 
goras, a citizen of distinction," in which state- 
ment we see that he was practically still the one- 
man power in Miletus. In his new enterprise he 
and all who were with him perished at the hands 
of the Thracians, one of whose cities he was 
besieging. 

Histiaeus, the former tyrant of Miletus, has 
also appeared in Asia Minor, being sent down b}^ 
the king from Susa to reconcile matters. He 
turns out a common freebooter, worse than Aris- 
tagoras, who at least recognized the new idea and 
partially affiliated himself with it, doubtless for 
his own personal ends, and so it could not take 
him as its true representative. But Histiaeus, 



BOOK FIFTH, 

while he advised the revolt, was wholly adverse 
to its democratic tendency ; this the Milesians 
knew and shut him out of their city. He must 
have strongly disapproved of the policy of Arista- 
goras ; his evident object was to construct a pow- 
erful Greek tyranny as a counterpoise to the 
Persian. The fate of such a person in such a 
crisis is again typical ; he fell into the hands of 
the Persians, where he belonged, and the satrap 
put him at once to death. He was not Persian, 
not Greek, really an enemy to both ; and he was 
rejected by both. On the whole, the reader will 
have more respect for Aristagoras than for His- 
tiaeus, but will see in the destinies of both a 
true nemesis of their deeds. 



BOOK SIXTH. 

This Book is very closely related to the pre- 
ceding one, it is, in fact, the direct continuation 
thereof in a number of ways. Both have one 
theme essentially : the struggle of the non-conti- 
nental Greeks of the East against Persia, and 
their failure. That is, the Greek world, except 
Sparta and Athens with their immediate allies 
(the Greek colonies of the West are out of the 
way), is overwhelmed and subjected to the 
Orient. The Persian line is reasserted in Asia 
Minor and advanced to the islands of the Egean. 
The Asiatic Greeks, headed by Miletus and her 
tyrants, cannot make themselves the successful 
bearers of the great world-historical conflict. 
Nor have the Islanders the stuff in them for such 
a deed ^ they surrender their freedom ; even 
Egina, at the very door of Athens, sends earth 
and water to the Great King. 
(334) 



BOOK SIXTH. 335 

Still the most emphatic point in the present 
Book is, that the Persian begins to find his limit 
in the Greek race. He impinges upon the 
European continent, aiming a blow at Athens ; 
the response of the Athenians is Marathon, verit-, 
ablj the most important battle yet fought upon 
the face of this planet, as far as mortal eye can 
see into the meaning of events. This is, there- 
fore the Marathonian Book, recording really all 
that we know of that epoch-bearing occurrence, 
and giving it in the order of circumstances which 
brought it about. It is the first bound put upon 
Persia by a civilized country ; she had swept 
around her borders and found her limit in bar- 
barous lands, such as Scythia and Libya. But 
this is a new kind of limit, that between Asia 
and Europe, Orient and Occident. Marathon is 
the birth of a new world, specially as distin- 
guished from the East. Premonitions of such a 
birth we find, indeed, long before Marathon, 
even in the Iliad ; but now it comes to light as 
the historic fact. 

In structure the present Book is much like the 
preceding one, is essentially a repetition of the 
same — wherein we may again remark that these 
two Books have the appearance of being halves of 
one laro^e Book. There are three main divisions : — 

I. The Persian Thread, showing the Persian 
conquering the outlying Greeks, putting down 
the revolt and subjugating the Islanders (1-47). 



386 THE FATHER OF BISTOBY. 

II. The Greek Thread, continuing from the 
preceding Book the history of the continental 
Greeks — specially Sparta and Athens, each of 
which is tested by Darius *' with earth and 
water" (48-93). 

III. The conflict — the line of battle being 
removed to continental Greece at Marathon, 
together with events at Athens succeeding the 
battle (94-140). 

The sweep of the Book has in it a grand 
upward movement from defeat to victory, from 
a race's sorrow and despair to a new joy and 
hope. All Hellas must have shared deeply in 
this feeling, in this rise from despondency to 
exultation. But the whole movement took place 
historically within the Ionic tribe, though a few 
Dorians and a few more , Aeolians were directly 
involved. The lonians of Asia Minor and of the 
Islands were the subjugated ones chiefly, and felt 
the brunt of Persian vengeance for the revolt ; 
these, too, were the ones who disgraced them- 
selves by their conduct in the sea-fight, the grand 
crisis. But the Athenians were also Ionic, and 
to their credit and to theirs alone stands the 
deed of Marathon. Thus both the fall and the 
rise in the present Book belong to the Ionic 
stock. 

Once more we may contrast this sweep with 
that of the preceding Book. There we find the 
course of Persian conquest interrupted by the 



BOOK SIXTH. 337 

Ionic revolt, which at first was successful, giving 
freedom to many Greek cities, holding at bay 
the Persian for a time, and destroying Sardes, a 
satrap's capital. Such was the sudden outburst 
of victory which, however, soon began to turn 
to defeat; the new-born hope of Hellas sank 
down into despair, as the Persian supremacy 
reasserted itself, and the Book ends in gloom. 
Thus the two Books together show a descent and 
an ascent, a sweep down and up again, rising at 
last to the dizzy height of Marathon. 

I. 

We call this first portion of the Book the Per- 
sian Thread, since Persia is the determining prin- 
ciple, though Greeks (of Asia Minor and the 
Islands) are involved and give the historian occa- 
sion for a number of amplifications. It shows 
the complete conquest of the revolt together with 
some additional conquests on land and sea. The 
struggle for the supremacy over the Aegaean is 
decided in favor of Persia; a narrow strip along 
continental Greece is all that remains free. Thus 
the marine element is almost wholly, though not 
quite, subjected — that element to which Greece 
owed so much of her independence. 

We have already noted the insufficiency of the 
leaders and of the peoples engaged in the Ionic 
revolt. They did not, and indeed could not, rep- 

22 



338 THE FATHEB OP HIS TOBY. 

resent tne vital principle at stake between Hellas 
and Persia; they stood for neither side in its 
purity ; they were but another batch of those 
intermediate contestants who had to be gotten 
out of the way before the real protagonists 
stepped forth into the arena. This fact is now 
made manifest in its completeness by the con- 
quest of the whole Greco-Asiatic line through 
Persia, as well as by the Persian preparation to 
advance to the new line, the Greco-European 
(1-47). 

The Persian suppression of the Ionic revolt 
may next be noted in its main stages. 

1. Histiaeus. The account is introduced by 
bringing before the reader this former Greek 
tyrant, who has just arrived at Sardes from 
Persia. His case is typical; he is really the 
instigator of the revolt, though he pretends to 
know nothing about it ; he is the wily, intriguing 
Asiatic Greek, double-faced, yet with activity 
and ability. He is playing his two-sided game 
now, but he has been found out by the Persian 
satrap Artaphernes, who tells him to his face : 
*' You stitched the shoe, Aristagoras put it on." 
Thus Histiaeus is rejected by the Persian ; it is 
no wonder that he takes to flis^ht and ofoes over 
to the lonians. 

A number of adventures he has (2-4), all of 
them characterized by successful lying and slip- 
pery cunning ; he dances visions of conquest 



BOOK SIXTH. 339 

before the lonians, and even in his absence he 
succeeds in turning Sardes upside down and mak- 
ing the hostile satrap's court a scene of confusion 
and blood. Then he makes an attempt to return 
to Miletus, which, however, " having got rid of 
Aristagoras, did not want another tyrant;" so 
he is repelled from his own city after receiving a 
wound. Next he turns corsair, taking station at 
Byzantium and capturing every ship that came out 
of the Euxine, unless it submitted to him. Thus 
Histiaeus is cast off by both sides, Persian and 
Greek, and becomes a common enemy, buccaneer, 
yet for himself still. 

His end may be given here, though it is nar- 
rated later (26-30). After the defeat of the 
lonians in the sea-fight, he thinks he has a 
chance in the general hubbub, and so comes 
down from his perch, seizing the weakened 
Chians and attacking Thasos. But at last he is 
taken prisoner by the Persians, is brought to 
his arch-enemy Artaphernes, and is impaled on 
the spot, his head being embalmed and sent as a 
present to his friend Darius at Susa — a grim 
piece of humor on the part of the satrap. 

We have already expressed the opinion that 
Histiaeus is a typical man of the present Ionic 
revolt ; he is a tyrant, yet turns against the 
Persian tyrant, when the latter no longer sub- 
serves his purpose. He does not intend to estab- 
lish a free Hellas, but his own tyranny ; really 



340 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

he is neither for Greece nor for Persia, but for 
himself. Yet he is representative; his success 
in winning over so many of the Greek islanders, 
after his flight from Sardes, shows how much 
they resembled him. Though personally re- 
jected by his own city, it is too like him to win 
in the present conflict. Not only his character 
but also his fate is typical ; he perishes at the 
hands of the Persians, which is also the destiny 
of this Ionic revolt. We may, therefore, see 
why the historian, with his Greek artistic in- 
stinct, opens the Book with Histiaeus, as a kind 
of overture or prefigurement of what is to follow. 

2. The sea-figlit off Miletus and its conse- 
quences. The Asiatic Greeks seem to have quite 
given up the attempt of defending the mainland 
against the Persian, though Miletus and some 
other cities on the coast had not yet been taken. 
The great struggle is to be a naval battle, very 
properly too, since the question now is. Shall 
the Aeo^aean become a Persian sea? The roll of 
States furnishing ships is called, it is a patriotic 
deed forever to be remembered by all Greeks. 
The Persian generals, with almost double the 
number of vessels, are nevertheless afraid of 
defeat; so they employ intrigue also, with effect, 
as we shall see. 

But in that fleet the hero appears in full 
splendor, Dionysius, the Phocaean. He sees the 
lack of discipline, he also sees the certainty of 



BOOK SIXTH. 341 

victory, if only the fleet, made up of contingents 
from many different States with many different 
heads, be gotten well in hand and be subjected to 
training. He is chosen leader and practices the 
ships in maneuvering; for seven days the lonians 
hold out, then they break to pieces, refuse to 
obev and take to the shade instead of toilins: in 
the hot sun. They are unwilling to sacrifice 
their Asiatic ease, they prefer submission to 
hardship, they are unfit to be the defenders of 
freedom. A Militades has appeared among those 
lonians, but he has no Athenian spirit to back 
him ; the outcome is signified clearly in this 
incident. 

The historian has duly recorded the degree of 
merit and demerit belono^ino: to the different con- 
tingents. He clearly regards the behavior of 
the Samians as the worst, they started the stam- 
pede, though eleven of their ships stayed and 
fought with honor. The Chians, however, were 
the true heroes of the battle, remainins: when the 
rest had fled, and fighting to the bitter end. 
Herodotus speaks of their many calamities with 
deep sympathy; this was indeed a tragic time 
for unfortunate Chios. The schoolmaster will 
note with interest the school house in the city of 
Chios, with its one hundred and twenty boys 
learning to read ; evidently public schools were 
already in existence before 500 B. C, and were 
well attended, in these Greek islands (27). 



342 THE FATREB OF HISTORY. 

Herodotus speaks of the lonians in a tone of 
disparagement when he describes this sea-fight ; 
a touch of Doric feeling or prejudice makes it- 
self felt in his words. For the heroic Chians 
were Ionic, while the Lesbians, who were 
Aeolians, behaved badly too ; in fact they were 
in some respects the worst of the lot, since they 
were the chief supporters of the freebooter 
Histiaeus, and attacked the Chians when the 
latter were disabled by their sacrifices for the 
common cause in the sea-fight — a most das- 
tardly act. Then the hero looming up over all 
is an Ionian, Dionysius, the Phocaean, whose 
city has already been celebated for its heroic 
resolution in the first Persian invasion (Book I, 
164-6). At that time a large portion of the city 
quit Asia, *' detesting slavery;" the remnant 
that stayed can now furnish only three ships, but 
it shows still the old spirit. 

The part .of Samos in the sea-fight with its con- 
sequences is given more fully by the historian 
than that of any other State or city ; evidently 
he obtained his materials for this period through 
his connection with the Samians, which has been 
already set forth (Book III). He says as much 
good of them as he can in honor; he reports 
their bad conduct in the battle, but tells also the 
circumstances which may mitigate the ill opinion 
of the reader. The best Samians did not approve 
of the action of their generals, and resolve to 



BOOK SIXTH, 343 

miofrate rather than live *' as slaves under the 
Mede and the tyrant Aeaces." So they go to 
Sicily, where they get possession of Zancle, the 
city which had invited them to a new home, in a 
manner cunning but not very honorable. Full 
of treasons, stratagems, and spoils are these 
Greeks, all of them; note too, the comment of 
the historian upon this successful act of treachery : 
'* Thus the Samians, being freedfrom the Medes, 
gained without toil the very beautiful city of 
Zancle " (Messina). Clearly Herodotus spares 
a little too much his friends, the Samians; he 
heard their side, doubtless from participants in 
the events themselves, since he was born less 
than twenty years after the Ionic revolt. Still it 
cannot be said that he defends the Samians, he 
tells enough for the reader to form a judgment 
of the case. Evidently in his day they were 
ashamed of their part in the sea-light, since all 
Greece looked back at it through the glory of 
Marathon and Salamis. 

The Persians conquer with ease the Greek 
cities on the mainland and the islands not far 
from the coast (31) ; then they pass to the Cher- 
sonese, where the family of Miltiades had sway; 
of this family the historian now gives an account, 
since it produced a number of distinguished men 
(34-41 and 103). The genealogy is a little com- 
plicated ; there are two by the name of Stesa- 
goras, two by the name of Cimon, and two by 



344 THE FATHEB OF HI 8 TOBY. 

the name of Miltiades. The first Miltiades son 
of Cypselus was the first Athenian colonizer of 
the Chersonese, going back to the time of Croesus 
(say 550 B. C). The line of Cypselus ceases 
with him; but the first Stesagoras (see 103) con- 
tinues the family through marrying the wife of 
Cypselus and mother of the first Miltiades. The 
line now runs : Stesagoras I, whose son is Cimon 
I, exiled by the tyrant Peisistratus and owner of 
the mares which won three Olympic prizes ; the 
latter's sons are Stesagoras II (killed by the blow 
of an axe in the hand of an enemy) and Miltia- 
des II (the Great, victor at Marathon) whose son 
is Cimon II, who paid his father's fine (136). A 
very distinguished line of men, evidently oppo- 
nents of the tyrant Pisistratus, tyrant-haters at 
Athens, yet tyrants themselves in the Chersonese ; 
likewise foes of Persian supremacy ; we remember 
that this Miltiades II had proposed to break down 
the bridge over the Danube, and leave Darius 
without escape from the Scythians. 

3. N'ew Persian policy (42). The war has 
plainly taught the Persians that they must organ- 
ize anew their conquered territory if they wish 
to obtain its greatest value. We read that the 
satrap Artaphernes established law among the 
Ionic cities, taking away their privilege of pillag- 
ing one another ; apparently he forms a central 
legal tribunal, to which appeal has to be made in 
case of differences. Before this the cities prob- 



BOOK SIXTH, 345 

ably could avenge their private grievances; if 
they paid their tribute to Persia, she did not care 
about their squabbles with one another. A great 
advance toward stable government is such a 
measure ; a tighter grip, too, is taken on the 
subject-cities, so that they cannot so easily get 
up a fresh revolt. Another important measure 
secured regularity in taxation by a fixed assess- 
ment, which, the historian declares, continued till 
his day. Truly the Persians have learned some- 
what by their recent experience, and Artaphernes 
shows himself a statesman. 

But the most surprising change of policy is 
that instituted by Mardonius, the new general : 
he deposed the tyrants of the Ionic cities and 
established democracies, of course under Persian 
authority. Undoubtedly this was a recognition 
of the spirit of the time, and a conciliatory 
step ; still the Persians were led to it in part 
by their experience with Histiaeus and Arista- 
goras, both of them Greek tyrants and f omenters 
of the revolt. So .the other party, the demo- 
cratic, was tried, inasmuch as a Greek tyrant 
was not necessarily a supporter of Persia, though 
there was an undoubted affinity between the two. 
One cannot help thinking that in all these meas- 
ures the wisdom and administrative ability of the 
Persian officials are shown ; they are true follow- 
ers of Darius, who was the great organizer of the 
vast, chaotic empire left by Cyrus and disordered 
by Cambyses. 



346 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

Herodotus repeatedly marks the activity and 
zeal of the Phoenicians in this war. There can 
hardly be a doubt that they hoped, under the 
Persian, to regain something of their ancient 
supremacy in the Aegaean, which had been totally 
annihilated by the lonians. This was their war, 
especially as regards its naval aspect; in the 
later Persian invasion they will be equally zeal- 
ous. One of the most surprising omissions in 
the present History is that Herodotus gives no 
special account of the Phoenicians, whom he 
must have known well and whose country he 
visited. Why such an omission? Did he dislike 
them for the part they took against Greece? 
Did he, as a Greek, feel a touch of the old com- 
mercial rivalry? He introduces them by the 
way, when his narrative demands it, otherwise 
he leaves them alone. 

The Persian Thread now begins to pass into 
the Greek Thread (48) specially — to that part 
of the Greek world which is in European Greece ; 
we may call it Greco-European in contrast to the 
islanders and Asiatic Greeks. 

n. 

The Persian king sends heralds to different 
parts of Greece demanding " earth and water" 
in token of submission. Many inhabitants of 
the Greek mainland complied ([)articularly in 



BOOK SIXTH. 347 

Northern Greece) and all the islanders includ- 
ing Egina, an island close to Athens, not 
far from the coast and almost a part of the con- 
tinent. At once Athens seizes the opportunity 
and makes complaint to Sparta that the Eginetans 
have betrayed Hellas. With this brief introduction 
the second portion of the present Book begins, 
and we pass to the internal affairs of Greece, 
mainly those of Sparta and Athens (48-93). 

In this incident, however, two points may be 
noticed. The first is that Athens distinctly rec- 
ognizes the headship of Sparta (hegemony) and 
at the same time insists that she do the duty 
belonging to her position. Sparta in turn rec- 
ognizes the duty and proceeds to its fullfillment. 
Thus we see a working basis of unity between 
the two leading States; this headship will be 
acknowledged by Athens throughout the coming 
war. The second point is that the continental 
Greeks have drawn a sort of boundary line; the 
other islanders out in the Aegaean can give 
** earth and water" if they choose, but not 
Egina, which cannot be Persian without making 
the Saronic Gulf Persian, and jeopardizing Athens 
as well as the rest of the mainland in the neio:h- 
borhood. 

Upon the drawing of this Greco-European 
line against the enemy, Sparta and Athens are 
substantially agreed. Both refuse to give " earth 
and water " to the Great King, and both destroy 



348 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

the Persian envoys, both are, therefore, equally 
offenders — a fact which unites them all the more, 
when they see the impending punishment. What 
is the internal condition of these two cities — 
are they ready? The historian at this point 
diverges into an account of Sparta and Athens, 
especially their recent history. In the present 
Book Sparta receives the most attention, as 
Athens did in the preceding Book ; particularly 
is the chief defect of the Spartan Constitution 
(the double kingship) brought out in strong 
colors. 

Sparta (50-86). Cleomenes, one of the Spar- 
tan kings, goes to Egina, to seize the guilty ones, 
who, however, resist, declaring that he was 
acting not only illegally but corruptly in not 
brin«:ino^ the other kino; with him on such an 
occasion. Here the Eginetans touch the Spar- 
tan difficulty, being incited thereto by Demar- 
ratus (the other king), who succeeds in thwart- 
ing the enterprise for the present. This striking 
circumstance leads the historian to tell how the 
dual authority came to be. 

Formerly the Spartans had a single king; 
one of these early kings died, leaving two 
sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, twins, both 
of whom through a stratao^em of the mother 
and through a response of the Delphic Ora- 
cle, were made kings, though one line, that 
of Eurysthenes, was more honored, because he 



BOOK SIXTH. 349 

was held to be the elder of the twins. It is 
observed that they, though brothers, were always 
at variance with each other throughout their 
lives, and that their royal descendants have not 
failed to keep up the strife. Thus our historian 
gives a story to account for a very peculiar polit- 
ical arrangement, which has been said to be the 
only case in all history; the sole nation with 
two kings ruling over it is declared to be the 
Spartan. But there are analogous cases; the 
two Roman consuls have doubtless the same 
purpose. It is indeed a very simple scheme to 
split in two the headship, when it gets dangerous, 
and so turn it against itself. A very primitive 
political device unquestionably, still a political 
device in favor of a rude freedom we must regard 
it; a kind of Limited Monarchy, before the es- 
tablished reign of Law, is this Spartan Monarchy 
(or Duarchy), in which the Monarch is limited 
by another Monarch. The device belongs to a 
period antedating the lawgiver, Lycurgus, who 
retained it as an old institution, but who sought 
to correct in part its defect by establishing the 
Ephors, in whom the unity of the State was 
restored in a certain deo^ree. Still the two kings 
had their own privileges and their sphere of 
authority, whereof Herodotus gives quite a little 
summary (56-60 ). Thus the dualism remains in 
the Spartan commonwealth, which seems unable 
to cure it or to shake it off ; the examples which 



350 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

follow set forth the trouble in a very significant 
manner. 

Thus one king had thwarted the other in the 
Eginetan affair ; now a new scene is brought 
before us in the drama of Cleomenes versus Dem- 
aratus, which, we recollect, opened already in 
the previous Book (V. 75) at Eleueis. Cleo- 
menes returns to Sparta determined to get even 
with his royal counterpart; he trumps up an old 
story which threw a doubt upon the legitimacy 
of Demaratus, and finds in Leutychides, a younger 
member of the Procleid line, the instrument by 
which he can oust Demaratus from the royalty. 
Moreover the Delphic Oracle is brought through 
corruption to declare that Demaratus is not the 
son of Ariston. But this is not the end of the 
matter. The mother of Demaratus is still living ; 
he is determined to find out his origin; he puts 
her under the most sacred form of oath and de- 
mands that she tell the truth. Her answer can- 
not be called straightforward, it is not satisfac- 
tory to Demaratus himself, and he proposes to 
leave the country. Indeed how could he stay at 
Sparta with such a tale going the rounds, spiced 
up with salacious puns (for instance that between 
Astrabacus the hero and astrabelates the donkey- 
driver) about his paternity? So Demaratus 
quits Sparta, is pursued, but succeeds in getting 
to Persia, where he obtains a place high in honor 
with the king Darius. Hereafter we shall find 



BOOK SIXTH. 351 

him one of the chief advisers of Xerxes in the 
grand invasion of Greece. 

The historian, faithful to his ethical view of 
the world, does not fail to record the retribution 
following these acts of successful wrong. Leu- 
ty chides was afterwards expelled from his coun- 
try for bribery and died in banishment (71-2); 
«'he paid the penalty to Demaratus," getting 
back what he gave. Still more terrible was the 
fate of Cleomenes who literally hacked himself 
to pieces. All the Greeks set about accounting 
for the manner of the death of Cleomenes ; it is 
curious to note these different opinions. The 
Argives say that he died because of his deeds of 
sacrilege committed during an invasion of Argos : 
which fact leads the historian to give an account 
of this invasion at some length (76-83). The 
Athenians say the act of sacrilege was done at 
Eleusis during his invasion of Attica. Another 
view is that he was crazy ; still another that he 
was drunk, having learned to drink "• unmixed 
wine " from certain Scythians who sojourned for 
a time at the Spartan capital. 

In these accounts of the three Spartan kings — 
Cleomenes, Demaratus and Leutychides — the 
historian brings impressively before us the re- 
sults of the two-headed government at Sparta. 
The best man of the three — and he was not too 
good — has been dispossessed of his kingship and 
has been driven to take refuge in Persia. Next 



362 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

a short account of Athens is interwoven, the 
counterpart of Sparta. 

Athens {^b-^d,). Through the deed of Cleo- 
menes and Leutychides at Egina ( the delivering 
to the Athenians the Eginetan hostages) the 
history of Sparta laps over and connects with 
that of Athens. The Spartans, having found out 
the truth after the death of Cleomenes, resolve 
to hand their king, Leutychides, over to the 
Eginetans, who goes with them to Athens and 
demands the release of the hostages. But the 
Athenians do not see their way to such an act, 
saying that two kings had deposited the hostages, 
and that it Avould not be right to give them up to 
one king. Thus the Eginetans, who once refused 
Cleomenes on the same grounds (50), have their 
pretext turned back on themselves with effect. 

But in the deeper view of the situation, were 
the Athenians rio:ht in detainino^ the hostatjes? 
These were securities that Egina would not go 
over to the Persian, to whom she had once given 
*' earth and water." Sparta, as head of Hellas, 
had exacted these hostages, and the original 
offense of Egina had not, as far as we are 
aware, been atoned. The dano^er to all Greece 
remained, particularly the danger to Athens, 
who undoubtedly was looking out for herself 
in the matter, but her interest was also that of 
total Hellas. Egina, going to Sparta, had suc- 
ceeded in changing Spartan policy, appealing 



BOOK SIXTH. 353 

probably to the jealousy of Athens existing in 
that city. Athens, therefore, appears in this 
affair as the true supporter of the Greek world. 
Leutychides, in order to enforce his request, 
narrates the story of Glaucus, a Spartan who 
had received a deposit on trust from a Milesian, 
and then hesitated about returning it when de- 
manded back. This may be called a Moral Tale, 
intending to enforce some precept of right or 
duty; it resembles somewhat that of Solon in 
the First Book, which enforces the doctrine that 
man cannot be deemed happy till death. A pur- 
posed object, stated in the form of an abstract 
maxim this story has, differing therein from the 
Mythus and the Fairy Tale. The Delphic Oracle 
is introduced, necessary to a genuine Spartan 
story, setting forth the vengeance which comes 
of perjury. For Glaucus proposed to swear him- 
self free ** according to the laws of the Greeks," 
if the Oracle would permit; that is, to swear 
falsely, if the God would see him out. Even 
stronger is the second response of the Pythia : 
to tempt the God to connive at crime is the 
same as committing the crime, and is punish- 
able with like penalty. '« So no descendant of 
Glaucus survives to this day," no domestic 
hearth, no ancestral rites are his — a fearful 
outlook for a Greek. Thus has Leutychides, in 
spite of his moral violations, turned moralizer, 
and gives a lecture to the Athenians, who did not 

23 



354 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

appreciate it, nay, *' tliej^ did not even listen to 
it." Who does? Then the Eginetans have not 
offered any guarantees against *'medizing" — 
which is the real point at issue ; so their hostages 
cannot be given up in such a crisis. 

The Eginetans, however, are bent on making 
trouble, a petty war begins between them and the 
Athenians (87 ). They captured in an ambuscade 
the Theoris, the sacred ship of the Athenians, 
"full of the first people of the city." Then 
came a reprisal; the Athenians started a revolu- 
tion in Egina, proposing evidently to democratize 
the government, which was oligarchical — a policy 
which could hardly be acceptable to Sparta. 
The attempt fails in the city, but the chief revo- 
lutionist, Nicodromus, with some other Eginetans 
keep up the warfare from Sunium on the Attic 
coast. The Eginetans take four Athenian ships 
in a sea-fight — thus the miserable strife goes 
on among the Greeks, with Darius at their door. 

Still Athens has, on the whole, won the main 
point. She acknowledges Spartan headship, 
securing thereby a basis of unity and co-opera- 
tion against the Persian. A great and worthy 
act in Athens, who therein subordinates herself 
to the cause; through it, too, she imposes duties 
upon Sparta. Egina is held within the European 
line, the Saronic Gulf does not become Persian, 
Athens is ready for the battle at Marathon. She 
shows at this period no such internal troubles as 



BOOK SIXTH. 855 

those of Sparta; her people, through democracy, 
have developed a mightiness of national spirit, 
which is still the world's wonder. The test is 
soon to be made, Darius is coming, no doubt of 
it, here he is. 

III. 

We now reach the third portion of the present 
Book (94—140) which takes up again the conflict 
between Persia and Greece, and describes a very 
important stage of it, the Marathonian stage. 
Darius keeps advancing, incited by the Pisis- 
tratids, and determined to subdue "those peo- 
ple of Greece who had refused to give him earth 
and water." That limit put upon Persia is not 
only the greatest insult, but is the denial of her 
national principle, which she feels she must de- 
fend or perish. The coils keep slowly tightening, 
the hugi^ constrictor seems on the point of crush- 
ing its prey, which now is little Athens. 

It is plain that the last battle-line is to be at- 
tacked, which line had been established chiefly 
by Athens when she prevented Egina from be- 
coming a Persian outpost. Very important does 
this act of hers turn out : the Eg^inetans remained 
with the Greeks and fought bravely at Salamis ; 
but if their island had been converted into a Per- 
sian naval station, the danger would have been 
great indeed, and there probably would have been 



356 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

no battle of Marathon, surely no battle of Salamis. 
But now the Persians find it the better wa}^ to 
attack the Greco-European line at its very heart — 
Athens — not by sea but by land. Hippias, the 
Pisistratid, favors the same method ; he had once 
recovered the city by that route, and he naturally 
thinks that his luck lies in the old direction. So 
Egina, by herself almost the equal of Athens at 
this period, remains quiet in the rear. 

The present portion of the Book will show the 
gradual approach of the Persians, then the fight 
at Marathon, and finally certain important events 
at Athens after the battle. The hero, the 
Greek hero, rises to view victorious in the fight, 
but tragic at last ; Miltiades will be seen on the 
highest pinnacle of human glory, and then he 
falls, utterly unable to stand up under his own 
greatness. The State is saved, but the individ- 
ual who has saved it goes down ; thus through 
the grand Marathonian jubilation is wrought a 
dark strain of destiny, tempering its triumph 
with a deep undertone of tragedy. 

1. The Persian approach. This is rapidly 
told, it takes place by land and sea. Certain 
islands of the Aegaean are first taken : Naxos 
which had been the scene of Persian failure 
(see preceding Book) is captured, though many 
of the inhabitants escape to the mountains. 
Delos, the sacred island, is spared, in part out 
of regard for the feelings of the lonians, large 



BOOK SIXTH. 357 

numbers of whom must have been in the fleet, 
and in part doubtless out of a Persian reverence 
for the sun and moon, with which Apollo and 
Diana, born in Delos according to the legend, 
were identified. The armament crosses the sea 
and reaches Eretria in Euboea, a city in close 
alliance with Athens, to which the latter had sent 
4,000 men. But Eretria was betrayed into the 
hands of the Persians, though the Athenians 
escape. 

The historian tells the names of the traitors, 
setting a brand on them, which lasted while 
Greece lasted, putting them into a kind of Inferno 
for all time. Such he deemed to be his duty as 
the recorder of the time. Nor does he foro^et to 
mention the grand portent, the earthquake at 
Delos, as the harbinger of the calamities of this 
calamitous period. 

2. The battle of Marathon, From Eretria 
the Persians pass to the plain of Marathon, as it 
lay most convenient in the direct line of the 
movement toward Athens. Herodotus seems to 
imply in addition that it was chosen as being 
'Hhe most suitable spot in Attica for cavalry; " 
but the cavalry never appears in the battle, before 
it or after it, and one may Avell doubt if it was 
ever landed in Attica, where there would be an 
exceedingly small amount of forage for horses, 
and very little use among the Attic rocks and 
mountains for that arm of the service. This, 



358 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

however, is one of the much-disputed points of 
the battle. 

In the description of Herodotus one man is 
protrayed as the soul of the entire Marathonian 
struggle from beginning to end — Miltiades, who 
had been chosen one of the ten generals of the 
Athenian forces. This choice primarily was 
made on account of his experience in Persian 
warfare. We recollect that he commanded a 
Greek contingent from the Chersonese in the 
Scythian expedition of Darius, when he pro- 
posed to break down the bridge over the 
Ister; later he had fought against the Persian 
power and had been dispossessed of his 
sovereignty in the North. Probably none of 
the generals had seen so much service, had shown 
such leadership in war, or knew so well the weak 
and the strong points of the enemy. Very 
creditable to the democratic electors of Athens is 
his selection at such a crisis, though there rested 
on him the stigma of having been a tyrant in the 
Chersonese, for which tyranny he had been pros- 
ecuted on a capital charge and had escaped ( 104 ). 
But he and his family had been the strongest 
enemies of the Pisistratids, by whom his father 
Cimon had been first banished and then slain. 
His attitude toward Persia was well known on 
account of his advice at the bridge over the 
Ister and his later struggles with that power. 

It is manifest when the Athenian army took up 



BOOK SIXTH. 359 

its position on the declivity sloping down to the 
pkiin of Marathon (doubtless at the modern 
Vrana), Miltiades with his experienced eye took 
in the situation at once, and he saw the advan- 
tage of fighting then and there. But the tQn 
generals were divided evenly ; Miltiades per- 
suaded the Polemarch to give the casting vote by 
assurances which sound indeed prophetic (109). 
To a certain extent we can even at this distance 
of time catch the outline of some of his solid 
reasons. First was the very disadvantageous, 
scattered position of the enemy with the 
swamp in the rear, preventing both retreat and 
succor, except by a long detour (see for further 
details, the author's Walk in, Hellas), Second 
was the absence of the Persian cavalry, much 
feared at that time by the Greeks ; he could have 
easily learned from Ionian deserters that it had 
not yet been brought over the Euripus and was 
not soon likely to be. Then there were internal 
reasons : the partisans of Pisistratus were active 
at Athens and even in the camp. " If we do not 
fight, I expect some great dissension will shake 
asunder the minds of the Athenians so that they 
will medize'' (yield to the Mede). He waited 
till his turn came to command ; delay was indeed 
dangerous, but he probably thought he had better 
take the risk in order to have his authority legal 
beyond question, as he had already had a strong 
taste of Athenian prosecution at law. 



360 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

In regard to the movement of the battle, its 
outlines can, we think, be distinctly made out, 
though many details are obscure. The first thing 
to be considered is the character of the ground, 
which is the oldest, most authoritative and least 
contradictory of all documents pertaining to the 
fight. Anybody walking over the ground and 
•studying its main points Avill have at once a 
natural image of the contest rise before him, 
which will be easily filled out by the written doc- 
uments. Note, then, the topographical sum- 
mary : ( 1 ) the sea line where the ships were 
drawn up; (2) the narrow coast of sand on 
which a part of the Persian army was encamped ; 
(3) the swamp behind this belt of sand, the most 
important ally of the Greeks; (4) the firm 
ground beyond the swamp on which the rest of 
the Persians were encamped. 

Now the very object of the Greek charge, 
made at a run, was to drive these outlying Per- 
sians into the swamp. The success was almost 
complete, only the center suffered a temporary 
check. Here the picture in the Poekile at 
Athens, painted during the lifetime of Maratho- 
nian soldiers, gives the most striking, and indeed 
the capital fact of the victory: " the barbarians 
are seen fleeing and pushing one another into the 
swamp," as Pausanias describes the picture, 
they being propelled thereto by the Athenian 
charge. 



BOOK SIXTH. 361 

The final stage was the battle at the ships, in 
which the Persians made good their embarka- 
tion with some loss to their assailants. The 
swamp now, in turn, protected the Persians 
camped along the sand line; the Athenians had 
to make the detour, and penetrate a narrow pas- 
sage, defended by enemies who had been fully 
forewarned. The Persians then set sail for 
Athens, apparently designing to attack it from a 
near position on the sea; but the Athenians 
march home with all speed, and take their 
station in another precinct of Hercules; the 
barbarians, however, soon sail off to Asia. 

3. At Athens after the battle (121-140). A 
shield had been held up from some high position 
shortly after the battle, " when the Persians 
were on board their ships.'' This was seen by 
the Greeks also, and was interpreted as a sign 
given to the Persians by domestic conspirators to 
come and take possession of the city. At once 
the Athenians started for home with all speed 
from Marathon, and the Persian fleet did sail 
round Sunium and anchor at Phalerum, the port 
of Athens, but soon left. 

At once the question was asked throughout the 
city: Who put up that shield? Upon the point 
arose the bitterest dispute between parties, with 
charofes and countercharo^es. The historian im- 
plies that the opinion prevailed that it was a part of 
a plot of the Alcmaeonids to deliver the city to 



362 THE FJlTHEB OF HISTORY. 

the Pisistratids (115). Against such an accusa- 
tion he takes occasion to make a strons^ defense 
of that family, which had been so long distin- 
guished for its hostility to tyrants, and had in 
reality been the great means of freeing Athens 
from the rule of the Pisistratids (121). The 
question was still alive fifty years later, in the 
time of Pericles who belonged to the family of 
the Alcmaeonids, and whose political enemies 
evidently brought this old charge against him 
and his ancestors. In the defense here made 
by the historian we may read a defense of his 
friend Pericles, from whom he may have de- 
rived much of the information about the Alc- 
maeonids which he shows in his history, here 
and elsewhere. 

Another great family of Athens was that of 
Miltiades, which we may call the Cypselids — 
Cypselus was its founder but not its ancestor ; 
this was really the wife of Cypselus through her 
second husband Stesagoras (see 34-36, and the 
genealogy of the family a few pages back). 
Both the Cypselids and the Alcmaeonids were 
great democratic families and furnished for 
several generations eminent leaders to the 
Athenian people. They agreed in their opposi- 
tion to tyranny, but on questions of domestic 
policy they were opposed to each other. There 
is no doubt that the family of Miltiades took an 
enormous stride forward in public esteem through 



BOOK SIXTH. 363 

the events terminating in the battle of Marathon ; 
it overshadowed for the time beino^ the Alcmaeo- 
nids, to whom political partisanship ascribed 
the putting-up of the shield. Moreover the 
Alcmaeonids had been connected, by ties of blood 
and marriage, with the Pisistratids — another 
fact in which suspicion could breed. On the 
other hand, Miltiades himself had a son who had 
become a Persian, and who was married to a 
Persian wife (41). That son could have been 
at Marathon fighting against his father, though 
there is no record of the kind ; and sons of that 
son could have been at Salamis with the army 
of Xerxes. The probability is that no member 
of either family put up the shield, but some 
secret partisan of the Pisistratids, who still had 
a party at Athens. 

As the Alcmaeonids were famous throuo^hout 
Athenian history, a little account of the family 
may be here set down. It starts with Alcmaeon, 
who does many favors to the embassy of Croesus, 
when the latter was consulting the Delphic Ora- 
cle (see Book First). This Alcmaeon, according 
to the tale (125), became rich through being per- 
mitted to help himself to gold from the treasury 
of the Lydian king. His son was Megacles, 
whose political career in connection with Pisis- 
tratus is given in the First Book (61-64). This 
Megacles was an Athenian suitor for the hand of 
the daughter of Clisthenes tyrant of Sicyon (see 



364 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

the Wooing of Agariste, soon to be recounted). 
Meo^acles had two sons — Clisthenes the legisla- 
tor at Athens (V. 6G-70), and Hippocrates(131 ) 
whose grandson was Pericles through a daughter 
Agariste, married to Xanthippus. This same 
Hippocrates through his son Megacles ( second of 
the name) had a great-grandson in Alcibiades 
famous in the later history of Athens, after the 
time of Herodotus. 

Such, then, were the two great families now 
at Athens, both of them producers of illustrious 
men, both democratic yet both ambitious to rule 
the democracy, and hence antagonistic to each 
other — we may call them the Cypselids and the 
Alcmaeonids. Here the historian interweaves a 
tale or rather a novelette, which, when we look 
into it closely, we shall find very suggestive. 

4. The wooers of A.gariste (126—130). Clis- 
thenes, the wealthy and polished tyrant of Sicyon, 
published throughout Greece a grand contest 
for his daughter Agariste, wishing to wed 
her to '* the best man of all the Hellenes." 
The wooers assemble from every part of the 
land, their names are duly reported in the cat- 
alogue; trial was made of ♦* their manly powers, 
of their temper, of their culture, and of their 
character;" their genealogy was duly inquired 
into, and thus the testing went on for a year. 
Two suitors from Athens were present, who took 
precedence of all others ; one was Megacles son 



BOOir SIXTH. 365 

of Alcmaeon, the other was Hippoclides, son of 
Tisandei', and of the two the latter was the more 
favored and had already won the maiden or the 
maiden's father. But on the very day when 
the marriage was to be decided and jiublicly 
annomiced, Hippoclides began to dance and to 
dance and to dance, and he ended by standing on 
his head before the whole company and dancing 
in that way, with his feet whirling in the air. 
Clisthenes was shocked and made the announce- 
ment; '* Son of Tisander you. have danced away 
your marriage." There might have been still 
hope with due apology, but Hippoclides 
answered: *' Don't care." Therewith his rival 
Megacles was given the bride, whom the latter 
carried off to Athens. 

This story was undoubtedly founded on fact, 
yet, we may well suppose, it has some fictitious 
elements. There is in it a kind of epical imita- 
tion, reminding the reader of portions of the 
Iliad and the Odyssey; one cannot help thinking 
of the suitors of Penelope and of some of the 
scenes at Ithaca, though in the present case the 
woman is kept wholly in the background; 
Agariste herself does not appear and has seem- 
ingly nothing to say in the matter. Herein we 
note a great difference from Homer; there has 
come over Greece a remarkable changfe in the 
position of woman since Homeric times. Yet 
Herodotus is a chivalrous admirer of the fair sex 



366 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

and gives them what prominence he can; note 
Artemesia, Tomyris, and other Eastern queens. 
Listen also to the following passage of the pres- 
ent Book (122): <« This Callias deserves to be 
remembered everywhere by everybody, * * * 
especially on account of his conduct toward his 
daughters, of whom he had three; he gave to 
each a magnificent dower, and permitted each to 
marry that man of all the Athenians whom she 
miofht choose for herself." Here is the rio^ht of 
choice given to maiden long before Shakespeare 
and the modern world; truly a far-off anticipa- 
tion of the girl of to-day. We believe it to be a 
genuine Herodotean sentiment, and deeply con- 
sistent with the historian's character. Still, we 
feel bound to say that the passage has been sus- 
pected by critics, notably by Stein, who holds it 
to be the work of some later interpolater ( see his 
note ad loc). 

But why should the story be inserted here 
after the battle of Marathon? On looking into 
the matter, we find that this Hippoclides who 
" danced away his marriage," was very probably 
a member of the great family to which Miltiades 
belonged, namely the Athenian Cypselids, who 
were related to the Corinthian Cypselids, Hip- 
poclides being connected with the latter (128). 
So this tale brings out two members of these 
rival Athenian families competing for the fair 
prize of all Hellas more than two generations 



BOOK SIXTH. 367 

before the battle of Marathon, and reflects not 
only the character of the persons concerned but 
the character of the families. The more brill- 
iant Cypselid has already won the precious 
object, but throws it away when just in his hands 
through lack of balance, while the more solid 
Alcmaeonid carries off the bride, the very Helen 
of the time. The tale will, therefore, suggest 
Miltiades and in a less degree Xanthippus, who 
was not an Alcmaeonid by birth but had married 
into the family; possibly too, it will hint of 
Cimon and Pericles belonging to the period after 
the battle of Marathon, which was also the period 
of our historian. Accordingly we are now to see 
how Miltiades, having attained unexampled suc- 
cess by his genius, " danced away his marriage," 
and was put down by his rivals, especially by 
Xanthippus, father of Pericles. 

5. Fate of Miliiades (132). After the great 
defeat of the Persians, «' Miltiades, who was pre- 
viously held in high estimation rose into greater 
repute than ever." Such is the grand climax of 
danger for every Greek soul, the danger of suc- 
cess. He asks and obtains of the Athenians 
ships and money for what must be called a ma- 
rauding expedition, playing before their imagina- 
tions that ''he would make them rich if they 
would follow him." That hfe of his in the Cher- 
sonese, a life of forays on the border, he begins 
anew from Athens ; he assails a Greek island, 



368 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

Paros, with the view of plunder mainly, and of 
satisfying an old grudge against a Parian. The 
expedition was a total failure, the hero of Mara- 
thon came back to Athens with his glorious career 
completely reversed — unsuccessful, unheroic, 
wounded, dying. 

His enemies, led by the Alcmaeonids, have now 
their opportunity ; especially Xanthippus is active 
in the case, prosecuting him on a capital charge 
'* for deceiving the Athenians," who, of course, 
would not have been deceived if the affair had 
been a success. They show the same character 
as Miltiades in this business — from Marathon 
they descend to being freebooters in that very 
Hellas which they have so gloriously helped to 
liberate. Both the hero and his people reveal 
the same limitation. 

Miltiades was present at the trial; '* lying on 
a couch with wound mortifying, he did not try 
to defend himself." But friends he had who 
did, citing his services at Marathon, and also in 
the capture of Lemnos, '* which island he hav- 
ing taken, inflicted vengeance on the Pelasgians, 
and then gave it to the Athenians." So there 
was one foray which had been successful, and of 
which the Athenians received the advantage. 
With this account the historian connects a notice 
of the Pelasgians and their deeds in relation to 
Athens ; repeatedly they have come up before 
in the present narrative — that strangely vanish- 



BOOK SIXTH. 369 

ing tribe of people which so often flits moment- 
arily through the background of Grecian history. 

Such, then, was the fate of Miltiades, the 
Athenian, enemy of tyrants at home, but the 
tyrant himself abroad, perishing through his own 
inner contradiction. The family opposed the 
Pisistratids at Athens, yet subjugated and ruled 
irresponsibly not only Barbarians but Greeks in 
the Chersonese. Yet they are not Oriental in 
sympathy, they are profoundly Athenian and 
even democratic in their hostility to the Persian 
autocracy. A new sort of tyrant, yet supremely 
typical of Athens herself, for she will hereafter 
be a democracy at home, yet a tyrant abroad and 
rule *' an Athenian Empire" in Hellas itself. 
Nay, even now, just after Marathon, she has 
shown herself perfectly willing to subjugate free 
Greek communities in Paros; truly she is what 
Miltiades is, her present greatest son, having the 
same inner limitation and contradiction. 

Miltiades is, accordingly, a tragic character, 
revealing the conflict on the stage of his own soul, 
which makes tragedy in real life or in the drama. 
We must not forojet that this is the ao^e of 
Aeschylus, supremely the poet of the tragic view 
of the world, and that he was himself at the bat- 
tle of Marathon, of which his brother was one of 
the heroes. And Athens herself has the same 
trao:ic orerm in her character, which later will 
come to maturity, yet is at present foreshadowed 

24 



370 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

in her deeds and in her literature. Both Athens 
and her hero lack universality, which is the true 
salvation from the tragedy of existence; not 
universal was Miltiades, he loved liberty for 
Athens, but not forParos, or for the Chersonese, 
or forLemnos, and so he does the tras^ic act and 
dies; not universal is Athens, loving her own 
autonomy and defending it with heroic vigilance 
and courage, but violating it too often in other 
Greek cities. But the grand tragedy of Athens 
is a later chapter of Greek history, not recounted 
and probably not fully seen by Herodotus. 



BOOK SEVENTH. 

It has been already noticed that the history of 
Herodotus as a whole divides itself into two parts, 
the second part being made up of the last five 
Books. This second part again falls into two 
main divisions, the Fifth and Sixth Books con- 
stituting one, the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth 
the other. These last three Books, then, belong 
together, giving the culmination of the Greco- 
Persian conflict, the invasion of Xerxes ; a single 
great drama we may deem it, in three acts, of 
which the first act shows the Spartan tragedy on 
land (Thermopylae); the second shows the 
ti'iumph at sea, essentially Athenian (Salamis); 
the third act shows the Greek victory on land 
both in Europe (Platea) and in Asia (Mycale). 

We see the entire Orient under Persia g^ettino^ 
ready for the war. At Marathon, merely a small 

(371) 



372 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 



Persian contingent was engaged on the one hand, 
and on the other merely the Athenians (with the 
Plateans); but now all the East is consolidated 
and hurled against Greece, and all the Greeks 
are summoned to save their w^orld, and must 
aid or refuse to aid. Both sides are putting 
forth their full strens^th ; when this has mani- 
fested itself, the historian brings his work to a 
close. 

Comino^ to Book Seventh and inspectinoj with 
care its structure, we find it organizing itself 
naturally into three portions. First is the Mus- 
tering of the Orient, showing the internal move- 
ment in the mind of the absolute ruler of Xerxes, 
and the external movement of the Persian 
armament from Asia into Europe. Second is 
the Mustering of the Greeks, showing the 
internal movement toward unity against the 
Oriental host (along with those Greeks who held 
aloof from their nation's greatest struggle), and 
the external movement of their army and navy. 
Third is the preliminary conflict between the two 
sides, with the first battle-lines on sea and land, 
culminating in the fight at Thermopylae. 

Such are the three general sweeps of the Book, 
into w^hich are introduced here and there episod- 
ical turns, stories, anecdotes, after the manner 
of the historian. It is dominantly historical in 
spirit, yet has its supernatural hints, omens, 
oracles. The end of the Book is sad, tragic; 



BOOK SEVENTH. 373 

Leoniclas with his three hundred Spartans and 
seven hundred Thespians, perish, suggesting the 
possible tragedy of HeHas, unless there enters 
some new savins: element. This element will be 
introduced through Athens, and will be shown 
in the last two Books. 

I. 

That which we have called the Mustering of 
the Orient (1-131) is very artfully constructed; 
into this structural element we must glance again 
at the start. There are three stages, each of 
them sharply marked by the introduction of a 
dialogue in which Xerxes is the central speaker, 
and in which are imaged the movements of the 
monarch's mind, as well as, more remotely, the 
movements of the Persian national spirit. These 
three stages also occur at important places in the 
advance toward the great end, Hellas : at home 
in Persia, at the Asiatic border where the cross- 
ing into Europe takes place, in Europe at Doris- 
cus where the enumeration of the hosts is made. 

In each of these stages there are two threads, 
an internal and an external, in due correspond- 
ence. The internal thread has as its leading 
figure and interlocutor the king, Xerxes, in whom 
and round whom the whole affair moves. We 
are inducted into his thouo^ht, which, he beins: 
unlimited sovereign, must rule all. Still he has 



374 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

his deep misgivings about the enterprise ; at first 
he is not inclined to it, but he cannot hold back, 
in spite of his absolute power; something drives 
him forward, a strong necessity in the time, in 
his people, in the Orient. The external thread 
follows the internal one, with a further step 
toward realization. 

An outline of these three stages with their 
corresponding threads we shall set down in the 
form of a table. 

1. The first stao^e of the Persian Musterino^ is 
Asiatic, and takes place in Persia. Darius left 
the revenge upon the Athenians for Marathon as 
an inheritance to his son ; then certain Greeks at 
court (the Pisistratidse, the Aleuadse, Demaratus) 
were urging the war against their countrymen. 
But these causes were merely incidental to the 
real cause — the inherent conflict between Orient 
and Occident, now to be imao^ed in the suro^ins^s 
of the autocratic mind ( 1-45 ). 

( 1 ) The internal Thread is the movement in 
the mind of Xerxes (a mustering of his pur- 
pose) given most completely in his speech and in 
that of Mardonius for the war and in that of 
Artabanus against it. All opposition is over- 
borne, and war is resolved on (8-18). The first 
chapters (1-7) are introductory. 

( 2 ) The external Thread is the mustering of the 
armament by land and by sea, and the march to 
Abydus on the Asiatic border (19-45). 



BOOK SEVENTH. 375 

2. The second stage is the crossing from 
Asia into Europe — the Orient seeks to get 
possession of the Occident (46-100). 

(1) The internal Thread; Xerxes is in tears 
at the limit of life, which is death; but Arta- 
banus admonishes him of other limits during^ life, 
probably soon to be felt by the unlimited ruler, 
and is sent home (46-53). Marked increase of 
the king's fatuity. 

(2) The external Thread; the army crosses 
the bridges over the Hellespont " under the 
lash;" the muster-roll of the army and navy 
(54-100). 

3. The third stage shows Xerxes in Europe, 
after the enumeration and review of the errand 
armament. He has crossed the border, the ter- 
ritorial limit with all the Persian Orient ; can 
there be any successful resistance to such a 
force? (10,1-131.) 

( 1 ) The internal Thread ; Demaratus . the 
Spartan is now called to give answer; yes, there 
will be resistance to the death. Xerxes lausfhs 
at him, but lets him go, manifesting the blindest 
confidence in his masses (101—104). Thus, the 
monarch, as he moves onward out of Asia into 
Europe, is shown moving more and more into 
infatuation, into a belief in his own unlimited self. 

(2) The external thread; the army passes 
from Doriscus toward Greece, sweeping along 
with it all the nations on its path (105-131). 



376 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

Such is the movement of Persia into Europe, 
once ag^ain crossing^ its western limit with a lars^e 
armv, as previously Darius had done. More than 
ever before the historian has sought to set forth 
the Persian consciousness, specially as it shows 
itself in the king, the unit of that consciousness. 
From the one center everything moves, the vast 
array is put in motion by one will, the stress is 
upon unity. Others may advise, but the king 
can choose his advice, he follows what he pleases. 
No independent individuality but his; what a 
contrast to the Greek ! 

From this point of view we can see the histo- 
rian's method of handling his subject. It is 
Homeric, and Xerxes is the Zeus of his Iliad, 
which is the culmination of the Persiad; he is 
the supreme governing power of the world. Yet 
there are inferior Gods who converse with him, 
honestly telling him their opinion. So Xerxes 
has his Mardonius, Artabanus, Demaratus, lesser 
lights circling around him, yet controlled by him. 
In like manner Homer has his Upper World of 
deities moving the lower world of mortals before 
Troy ; is not the grand expedition directed from 
the Persian court with its central Ego ? The whole 
manner of Herodotus in this part is epical, a 
reproduction of Homer in History ; there is a 
thread which is dialogue, the dialogue of the 
Gods, giving the internal or spiritual principle 
at work ; then there is the thread of outer 



BOOK SEVENTH. 377 

events, the manifestation of this principle in the 
world. 

Moreover there can be no doubt but that the 
dialogic portions, the conversations of Xerxes 
with those around him, are fictitious, composed 
by the historian himself giving free rein to his 
creative power. It is only another phase of his 
mythical gift, which we have already so- often 
noticed. Still, though the outer form be ficti- 
tious, the essence is truth, in fact just the truth 
of the whole Greco-Persian conflict. As Aris- 
totle, another Greek, has said : poetry is truer 
than history. But when the expedition itself 
is treated, the narrative becomes historical, drop- 
ping from poetry into prose, from fiction mto 
fact. The above scheme we shall now develop 
in detail. 

1. The first staoje of the Persian movement is 
the Asiatic, that is, it takes place in Asia, and 
shows the advance toward Europe. After the 
battle of Marathon, Darius was more determined 
than ever to humble the Greeks of the continent ; 
that limit which they had put upon Persia must 
be removed. Accordingly '* Asia was thrown 
into excitement for the space of three years, the 
bravest being enrolled for the expedition against 
Greece." Asia against Greece is indeed the con- 
flict. A revolt breaking out in Egypt interfered 
for a time; in the midst of the preparations 
ao^ainst both countries, Darius died and was sue- 



378 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

ceeded by Xerxes, his son by Atossa, daughter 
of Cyrus. 

( 1 ) The new king is the central figure of the 
present Book. Around his presence the great 
expedition moves toward its goal ; in his mind 
the fluctuations of the mighty struggle from one 
side to the other image themselves ; our historian 
seeks to give both these sides swaying through the 
soul of the monarch, and interweaves them in a 
subtle web of connection. Xerxes ^vas at first 
not inclined to make war upon Greece, but the 
influence in favor of it was too strong for him. 

This influence was mainly of two kinds, Greek 
and Persian. Tyrants who had been driven out 
of Grecian cities usually betook themselves to 
Persia, where they constituted quite a little 
group. The Aleuadae of Thessaly, the Pisistra- 
tidae of Athens are mentioned, but the chief of 
these expatriated Greeks was the Spartan 
Demaratus, w4io will be introduced as one of the 
spokesmen in the drama which follows. Still, 
the main influence working upon Xerxes was 
Persian, and was twofold, for and against the 
invasion. 

Mardonius represented the Persian influence 
which favored the invasion. His leadino^ aro^u- 
ment was that Persia must punish the Athenians 
for Marathon ; national honor demanded ven- 
gence. The historian adds that Mardonius had 
a personal motive also: "he was eager for 



BOOK SEVENTH. 379 

new enterprises and wished to be governor of 
Greece." 

And now comes the speech of Xerxes (8), in 
which the Persian spirit in regard to the war 
is expressed. *' What deeds preceding kings, 
Cyrus, Cambyses and Darius achieved, I must 
try to equal." Vengeance upon Athens must 
betaken. *'I intend to bridge the Hellespont, 
to march an army through Europe against 
Greece." But the most sii>:nilicant statement is 
the following: ''if we subdue the Greeks, we 
shall make the Persian land of equal bounds with 
the air of heaven ; nor will the Sun look down 
upon any territory bordering upon ours ; but I 
shall make them all one land, marchinoc'throufifh 
Europe. Thus both the guilty and the guilt- 
less shall have to submit to the yoke of servi- 
tude." 

Such is indeed the utterance of Persian con- 
sciousness, which can allow no external boundary 
to be put upon itself. All must acknowledge its 
supremacy, then they can live. Moreover this 
consciousness is directly connected with the Sun, 
which shines upon all, and whose limit is dark- 
ness. The religion of the Persians was the re- 
ligion of light and darkness, whose conflict was 
their great symbol, the conflict between Ormuzd 
and Ahriman. The Persian nation was the 
light, the Sun, and any limitation of it was dark- 
ness. So the war between Persia and Greece 



380 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY.' 

was a conflict between Ormuzd andAhriman, and 
must have had a religious meaning. 

In this way we may bring before ourselves the 
deeper ground of Persia's conduct. It was not 
revenge alone, though that was one motive, not 
desire for wealth, or for territory merely; the 
Persian, as the true follower of Ormuzd, had to 
try to remove the Occidental limit, which meant 
darkness and extinction to him and to his deity. 
Persia had to go forth into the fight in order to 
be Persia. Xerxes at first was averse to the 
struo^sle, but there can be no doubt that the 
spirit of the Persian people pushed him forward. 
They sought, and it was their spirit to seek, 
unity, the unity of the world; to be sure this was 
an external or territorial, and not an internal or 
spiritual unity. Such is the strong side of their 
cause, in striking contrast to the Greeks, who 
have no unity, but the idea of freedom, of indi- 
viduality. 

The weak side of the Greeks is emphatically 
brought out by Mardonius in his speech (9). 
'* They are accustomed to undertake wars with- 
out deliberation, fighting one another ; but they 
ought, being of the same language, to adjust 
their differences bv means of heralds and mes- 
sengers, in any way rather by battle." Such is 
indeed the fatal lack of unity in Greece, and from 
this comes the danger. But the Persian takes 
little account of individuals, he believes in vast 



BOOK SEVENTH. 381 

masses; he has to learn that one man may be 
more than a multitude. Unity without freedom 
is Persian, freedom without unity is Greek. 

Still the Greek side is to find a representative 
among the Persians — Artabanus, who is now to 
give his opinion (10). This high-born Persian, 
brother of Darius and uncle of Xerxes, voices 
the difficulties of the invasion. He distrusts the 
bridge of boats over the Hellespont, and recalls 
the bridge of the same kind over the Danube, 
at which Darius so narrowly escaped. Then 
from the action at Marathon he is inclined to 
draw a deterrino^ inference. But his chief argu- 
ment is the religious one: *' Dost thou not see 
how the God smites, with his thunderbolt, the 
overtowering animals, and does not suffer them 
to grow insolent? So a large army is over- 
whelmed by a small one; since the deity 
through envy strikes them, not permitting any- 
one but himself to cherish o^reat thous^hts." 
Thus says Artabanus, through whom the his- 
torian is speaking his own opinions, affirming his 
well-known doctrine of divine envy. 

The views here set forth constitute a kind of 
a Philosophy of Histor}^, as Herodotus had con- 
ceived it in relation to the Persian War. What 
is the ultimate ground of the destruction of such 
a large force by such a small one? It is carried 
back to the divinity, who is jealous of the colos- 
sal, the enormous, the excessive in any shape. 



382 THE FAT HE E OF HIS TOBY. 

Truly Greek is the idea of moderation, and the 
Greek God must bring down in some waj this 
immoderate Asiatic king, army, people. Mere 
magnitude is undivine, the Giants were hurled 
into Tartarus by the Olympians in the old My- 
thus. Such is the principle ; again the Hellenic 
spirit is fighting a Gigantomachia, historical, not 
mythical. The envy of the God is his hate of 
the chaotic mass overwhelminof the free individ- 
uah Artabanus (or Herodotus) is the Greek 
soul in Persia, having a presentiment of wdiat is 
to come, uttering the warning of the seer. The 
Greek God also is a leveler, democratic; he will 
level the haughty monarch, even the Persian 
King, highest of mortals. 

Xerxes gave an angry, scornful answer to the 
frank declarations of Artabanus; still the king 
soon felt similar forebodino^s, and even chancred 
for a time his resolution to invade Greece. Then 
came the dream urging him forw^ard again ; a 
specter stood beside him in the night and spoke : 
'' You do not well to change yonv mind, nor is 
there any one here in Persia who will approve." 
The last sentence expresses the meaning of the 
ghost; the spirit of Persia it is, which appears 
to him in his unconscious moments and bids him 
not recede. The same ghost appears soon to 
Artabanus, threatening *' to burn out his eyes with 
hot irons," if he persists in his advice. So he 
too yields, concluding that '* some divine impulse 



BOOK SEVENTH. 383 

has sprung up," and that *' some God-sent de- 
struction is on the point of overtaking Greece." 
Such is the vivid picture of the historian, setting 
forth the spirit of Persia, in its religion and its 
national idea, as it works upon the unwilling 
Xerxes first, then upon the unwilling Artaba- 
nus, and forces both out of their opposition 
into acquiescence. Note here in what way Her- 
odotus employs the dream, conveying a great 
and important fact in a fictitious or unusual 
form. A second vision Xerxes has, far less 
siofnificant than the first; he dreams that he is 
crowned with a branch of the olive tree, which 
branch then suddenly vanishes. This dream is 
evidently made to order, foreshadowing his cap- 
ture of and flight from Athens, the sacred 
home of the olive. 

Such is the inner movement, that of the mind, 
of Xerxes, in his fluctuations from unwillingness 
to resolution. Manifestly the spirit of the Persian 
nation overbore him in favor of the war, which 
was a deep necessity of Persian spirit. The, lat- 
ter could not quietly endure the Greek limit and 
remain itself. It may be here noted that this 
use of the ghost is very similat to Shakespeare's 
use of it in his Julius Caesar, 

(2) Now we pass to the external movement of 
the king, who starts from his capital, Susa, for 
Greece to lead in person the expedition. He 
commands a canal to be cut across the peninsula 



384 THE FATHEB OF HISTOBY. 

of Mount Athos (22), not so much for its utility 
as out of a feeling of pride, thinks our historian. 
Also the Hellespont was bridged, stores of pro- 
visions were gathered along the proposed route, 
and the march begins from a city called Critalla 
in Cappadocia. Xerxes on reaching Sardes, 
sends heralds to the cities of Greece demanding 
earth and water, but no heralds were sent to 
Athens or Sparta. 

Several anecdotes illustrate the character of 
Xerxes. He can be very kind and generous, yet 
also very cruel and ignoble. As long as no limit 
is put upon him by man or nature, he is exceed- 
ingly gracious. His conduct when a storm broke 
up the bridge over the Hellespont shows his dis- 
position. He ordered the water to be whipped with 
a scourge, and a pair of fetters to be let down 
into the sea. The winds and waves refused to 
obey him, so he rises in wrath against the limit 
they place to his power. 

Xerxes leaves Sardes in 480 B. C, and passes 
towards Abydus on the Hellespont. On the way 
he goes through the plain of Troy, and visits the 
Trojan citadel. He learns of the famous war 
once waged on this plain, where the great battle 
.between Orient and Occident was first fought. 
He must have felt some tie connecting him and 
his expedition with the place ; he sacrifices a 
thousand oxen to Trojan Minerva, and the Magi 
pour out libations to the heroes, the Trojan ones 



BOOK SEVENTH. 885 

doubtless. Terror fell upon the camp in the 
nioht duriniy these ceremonies; Greek heroes 
also haunted the locality probably. Famous 
Scamander was drinik dry by this army. The 
Asiatic boundary is reached at Abydus, the king 
is now to leave his Orient and to pass into Europe. 
But first he takes a survey of his forces (44) on 
both sea and land. ** And when he saw the 
whole Hellespont covered by the ships and all the 
shores and plains of Abydus full of men, Xerxes 
thereupon pronounced himself happy, but after- 
ward shed tears." The proud monarch, in the 
height of his glory, shows the finite man, and 
feels the transitoriness of himself and of all his 
host: " In a hundred years hence not one of 
them will be alive." 

2. Here we have reached the second stage of 
this movement of Xerxes, inner and outer. He 
beholds both his naval and military power at the 
crossing into the new world ; he passes over the 
border line between Orient and Occident. 

(1) His internal state is shown by another 
conversation with Artabanus, whom after all he 
took with himself on this expedition. Again 
Artabanus enacts his former part, he is monitor 
to the young king, holding up before the latter 
the just limits of power, and calling to mind the 
difficulties in the way of the present enterprise. 
The first grand obstacle is the water, an uncer- 
tainty and a terror to the Persians, who were not 

25 



386 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

a sea-faring people ; moreover these Ionian sailors 
are very dubious in their loyalty, being compelled 
to serve against their own kindred. The second 
orrand obstacle is the land with its dans^ers and 
hardships. Thus Artabanus acts as limit-placer 
upon Xerxes, who is more impatient of restraint 
than ever; so he sends Artabanus back to Susa, 
and o^ets rid of his disao:reeable monitor. Herein 
we may note a step further in arrogance on part 
of the kino^, and for the future he has no uncle 
to warn him. When he passes out of the Asiatic 
bound into Europe, he has transgressed his limit, 
both within and without; the Orient is the field 
for the Persian, it is really a going beyond the 
bound of Persian spirit to pass out of Asia. But 
Xerxes is now absolute, without the check of 
Artabanus. 

(2) The passage over the Hellespont is accom- 
panied with significant religious ceremonies, 
which mark its importance in the eyes of the 
king. He felt that it was a prodigious step, 
and very uncertain. The Persian Gods are 
invoked with prayer; especially the Sun, the 
deity of Light, is petitioned and placated with 
sacrifices ; the army marches over the bridge 
from East to West along Avith the movement of 
the great luminary. 

Now the king is in Europe and skirts the coast 
of the sea till he comes to Doriscus, which is a 
shore and plain in Thrace (59). Here the enu- 



BOOK SEVENTH. 387 

meration takes place. The muster-roll of the 
Persian army is given ; all the subject-peoples of 
Asia pass in review before their march against 
Greece. The land forces are computed at seven- 
teen hundred thousand. The number of triremes 
is placed at twelve hundred and seven. It is a 
huge Asiatic mass, not well organized, utterly 
heterogeneous compared with the Greek, and 
forced to its task by the whip. 

3. When the enumeration was finished, and 
Xerxes had made a complete inspection of his 
and army and his navy (100), he enters upon 
the third stage of his movement from Asia to 
Greece. He calls to himself a Greek now, Dema- 
ratus, the Spartan, who is to hold up before the 
king the character of the Greeks, specially of 
his countrymen. *« Will they fight this vast 
army? " asks the king. '' Certainly; if only a 
thousand, they will give you battle." The thing 
seems impossible to Xerxes, who has merely the 
notion of a vast overwhelming mass, like nature's 
avalanche; he has no conception of the dis- 
ciplined army of small numbers. Still less can 
he see how the free individual can be under 
authority, and obey without the whip. The 
statement of Demaratus gives the Greek view: 
'* The Lacedemonians fighting singly are inferior 
to no men, but fighting together they are the 
bravest of all men." Such is the result of their 
military life and training, which organizes the 



388 THE FATHEB OF HI iS TOBY. 

mass. Again : " they are free but not free in all 
things : over them Law is niilster, who always 
demands the same thing," and thus they are 
not subjected to the caprice of an absolute mon- 
arch. So the Spartans will not flee before any 
number of men, but will " remain in their ranks, 
and conquer or die." 

The words of Demaratus are a prelude to the 
war, specially the Spartan prelude to the battle 
of Thermopylae. This dramatic preparation goes 
before the real struggle and prefigures the result. 
Very sharp is the contrast drawn between the 
Spartan and the Persian ideas, which are about 
to grapple. 

(1) The inner movement of the mind of 
Xerxes, is to be noted in this interview. He 
again receives a warning, not now from a Per- 
sian but from a Greek, a Spartan, who announces 
the fact which the king may soon expect. But 
Xerxes cannot acceptthe view presented; the 
vast army, now known by the enumeration, has 
increased his infatuation to the point of blind- 
ness ; next will come the shock, the blow from 
the outside, which will verify the words of 
Demaratus. 

Thus Xerxes has passed through three stages, 
movins: more and more toward his fateful condi- 
tion. Far back in Susa he listened to the warn- 
ing of Artabanus, but both himself and his mon- 
itor were overborne ; in Abydus on the border, 



BOOK SEVENTH. 389 

where the king first saw his vast army, he dis- 
missed Artabanus; at Doriscus, when he knows 
the numbers of his host, he will not believe 
Demaratus, the Spartan telling of the Spartans. 
The reader will not fail to observe a continuous 
increase in the fatuity of Xerxes, marked off in 
three main gradations. 

(2) The external movement is resumed from 
Doriscus toward Greece (105). Our historian 
has carefully noted the places through which the 
army passed, along with many incidents of the 
march. As the wave rolled on, additions were 
made to it from the nations along its path ; many 
ships were also added to the naval armament. 
The army marched in three divisions, along three 
different roads ; one moved by the coast, another 
inland, and one between these two ; with the 
latter Xerxes went. A vast swarm of human 
grasshoppers devouring everything in its way ; 
it sweeps around the Thermaic Gulf, turns south- 
ward through Thessaly, and begins to draw 
toward the Greek battle-line. 



II. 

Such is the Persian host mustering and ad- 
vancing against Greece; what is the latter doing? 
Next we are to have the musterinoj of the Greeks 
and their advance against the invading host 
(131-178). 



390 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

Strikino^ is the difference between the two 
sides, not only in numbers but in character. The 
Persian army has one will at the center, all other 
wills are absorbed or unified in that one will. 
The Greek host has man}^ w^lls, each self-deter- 
mining and independent; hence its character is 
first that of separation, scission, discord. But 
when it gets united, the union is an internal one, 
that of the spirit. As their fight is for freedom 
their union must be essentially a free act on the 
jDart of the individual, city, and State. If ex- 
ternal force were employed to produce conform- 
ity, the Greek army would be like the Persian, 
wdiose symbol of unity is the whip. Bat all the 
Greeks are not at one, accordingly we are to see 
how both the hostile and the indifferent elements 
slough themselves off from the great enterprise. 

In this Greek portion both structure and style 
change in the historian's narrative. In the pre- 
ceding Persian portion of the present Book there 
was the internal movement in the mind of the 
king, and then the external movement of the 
army, with little volition of its own. But now^ 
there are many internal movements, each leader, 
city and State has its own, and the Oriental one- 
ness seems shivered into an endless Greek multi- 
plicity of individuals which have to get their 
unity through themselves. That external, rather 
jejune and mechanical account of the army's 
march falls away ; also the internal movements 



BOOK SEVENTH, 391 

of the one ruling will have no place here ; on the 
contrary, life, struggle in all variety wakens a 
fresh interest, which is imaged in the style of the 
historian. Free activity of the man is now at 
the front, and makes tense every muscle ; the 
enslaved activity of the Persian portion has im- 
parted itself to the words in which it is told, and 
the form which the whole account takes on. 

These points will be best seen just now by a 
survey of the structure of this portion of the 
Seventh Book. Note how it starts with Greek 
division, not with Persian solidarity ; the Greeks 
will also come to unity, but not through external 
might; those who refuse to unite, however, must 
take the responsibility of their act. The move- 
ment of this Greek portion is, therefore, through 
the separation and diversity involved in many 
free-wills to their unity based upon their choice. 
The form which their problem takes here is, 
Shall we give earth and water to the Persian, 
symbols of submission ? 

1. The first division into two opposites — those 
who grant and those who defy the Persian de- 
mand (132-147). 

( 1 ) The list of those who gave earth and 
water (132); quite all of these peoples lie out- 
side of the Greek battle-line, in or toward Thes- 
saly, and hence exposed helplessly to the Persian. 
So much for their excuse ; but they had not the 
stuff of the Athenians, who still kept up the fight 



392 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

after losing home and country. Yet this excuse 
does not hold good for the Thebans and Boeo- 
tians. The penalty is a tithe to the God at 
Delphi. 

(2) The list of States which not only refused 
earth and water but destroyed the Persian her- 
alds demanding the same — Athens and Sparta, 
to which we must add their allies (133-144). 
This destruction of the heralds was, however, a 
violation of the Gods (and of the law of nations 
then beginmng to be acknowledged) ; for which 
violation the religious Spartans are laid under a 
divine judgment, while the Athenians did not 
suffer any penalty for the same offense, in the 
opinion of the historian (133). 

2. The list of the neutrals — the important 
Greek States which neither submitted to Persia, 
nor aided Greece. Four such States are spe- 
cially mentioned, in which we may note two 
classes, according to locality (148-171). 

( 1 ) The central Greek State which stood aloof 
was Argos. Various reasons assigned for her 
attitude (148-52). 

( 2 ) The remoter Greek States which refused 
aid — Sicily, Crete, Corcyra (153-71). 

3. Now we are to see those who are really 
united in the defense of Greece taking their 
position in the line of battle, and thus showing 
their spirit. The sifting has taken place ; the 
hostile, weak, and indifferent Greeks are sifted 



BOOK SEVENTH, 393 

out, probably to the advantage of the cause. 
Two battle lines and another sifting (172-8). 

(1) The first battle-line includes Thessaly, 
whose peoples have not the grit of the true Greek 
soul, and cannot stand the test. *' If you do not 
send us an army to guard the pass of Olympus, 
we shall make terms with the Persian." Not the 
true ring; so in the end they did go over and 
*' proved most useful to the king. ' ' No such back- 
ing can help in the long run, so Thessaly must be 
sifted out (172-4). 

( 2 ) The second battle-line at Thermopylae and 
at Artemisium — the first being the station on 
land, the second being the station on the sea, and 
both near togfether. The Greek belono^s to the 
sea as much as to the land ; both his elements are 
here united to his advantage, the Persian himself 
not being a seaman (175-7). Delphi (178). 

The movement of this Greek portion will there- 
fore start with difference, with separation among 
the Greeks in its various shapes, and show the 
process of eliminating the unworthy who stood 
aloof through fear or enmity, or indifference. 

1, The first ground of separation, then, is the 
giving of earth and water to the Persian messen- 
gers who were sent by Xerxes from Sardes to all 
the Greek cities. Those who complied are here 
mentioned, while Athens and Sparta on a former 
occasion had destroyed mercilessly the envoys 
sent to them on the same errand. 



394 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

Of these two the Athenians were altogether 
the most active, and, though Sparta was the 
leader they (the Athenians) had made themselves 
the bearers of the great cause. The historian 
declares emphatically that if they had abandoned 
their country, or, remaining in it, had surrendered 
themselves to the Persian, the Greeks would have 
lost. They controlled the sea, and roused the 
other Greeks; they were, next to the Gods, the 
saviors of Greece. So speaks Herodotus, though 
he knows that he will excite great envy by the 
statement from the many enemies of the Athen- 
ians and their supremacy. 

He goes on to tell how even the Delphic 
Oracle, when consulted by them, could not dis- 
courage them with an unfavorable response bid- 
ding them '* leave their city and flee to the ends 
of the earth." Such was the first response, 
which the Athenian deputies would not accept 
as final ; so they sought and obtained a second 
response, which said that " Zeus gives to Athena 
a loooden walU impregnable, which will save thee 
and thy children." But what does this wooden 
wall mean? Still further: " O, divine Salamis, 
thou shalt cause the children of women to 
perish, whether the harvest be scattered or 
ojathered." Here the Oracle is at least ambisf- 
uous, previouslj^ it was unambiguous in its dire 
announcement. This ambiguity then is a clear 
gain, the response is carried to Athens where 



BOOK SEVENTH, ,395 

the man is on hand who can interpret it, for 
the interpretation is at present the main 
thing. This man we now hear of for the 
first time: Themistocles, son of Neocles, 
'Mately risen to eminence;" he says that the 
wooden wall means the ships, to which the 
Athenians must betake themselves in case of 
invasion. Already the same man had persuaded 
the Athenians to build two hundred triremes, 
and master the sea in the war with Egina; so 
they have the wooden wall ready. 

Such is the new man appearing above the 
turmoil, interpreter of ambiguous oracles, and 
thereby clearly placing himself above the Delphic 
Oracle. It is the dawn of the era of intelligence, 
which is henceforth to rule, though not in formal 
authority. Athens is the great positive upholder 
of the Greek idea against the Persian, and 
Themistocles is the incarnation of Athenian spirit 
at present. 

Such is the first grand distinction among the 
Greeks, showing those who submit by sending 
earth and water and those who will not submit, 
even though discouraged by their own Oracle. 
Have they not become their own Oracle? 

2. We are now to have a list of a somewhat 
different class of Greeks, who did not send earth 
and water to the Persians, but who stood aloof 
in the great crisis, from one pretext or other. 
They are the neutrals in the grand conflict which 



396 THE FA THEE OF HIS TOBY. 

determined the destiny not only of Greece but 
of the whole Occident. Four important States 
are mentioned, each one of which could have 
rendered assistance. 

The case of Argos evidently caused much dis- 
cussion in aftertimes ; the historian gives three 
accounts. But one thinof is certain : the Archives 
took no hand in the repulse of' the Persian, and 
the suspicion hangs over them that they secretly 
favored the invaders of Hellas. 

The case of Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, was also 
variously reported. His power was greater than 
that of any other Greek State, and to him am- 
bassadors were sent asking for assistance. Gelon 
did not appear, and it is manifest that he had a 
good reason. The same day on which the battle of 
Salamis (480 B. C.) was fought, there was a great 
battle with the Carthaginians who had invaded 
Sicily with a vast army, and Gelon had his hands 
full at home. Probably there was some kind of co- 
operation between Carthage and Persia ; but from 
Greek Sicily the Oriental wave was rolled back, 
as in Greece proper. So we may excuse Gelon, 
at least he has the best excuse of all these States. 

The Corcyraeans were also solicited to help the 
cause, and they said they would, but they did not 
fulfill and did not intend to fulfill their promise. 
They manned sixty ships and put to sea, but 
were careful not to reach Salamis. Their case is 
rather the worst of the four cited. 



BOOK SEVENTH. 397 

The Cretans were likewise invited to send as- 
sistance to their Greek brothers, and they con- 
sulted the God at Delphi as to what they should 
do. The answer of the Oracle was not very dis- 
tinct, but the Cretans were evidently ready to in- 
terpret it as dissuasive, wherein they doubtless 
showed their inclination. Very different was the 
interpretation of an ambiguous response by the 
Athenians. So we shall have to place the Cretans 
in the list of the shirkers — where the historian 
places them evidently. 

The Delphic Oracle in this Book has been play- 
ing a curious part. It dismayed the Athenians, 
giving the great upholders of the Greek cause 
little comfort ; it dissuaded the Argives, who, 
however, were ready to set it aside; it gave a 
pretext to the Cretans for holding off. The 
Pythia is evidently somewhat demoralized, re- 
flecting the prevalent terror and uncertainty of 
the Hellenic world. It is true that the Oracle 
told the Delphians to pray to the Winds (178), 
and the Winds did descend with vengeance upon 
the Persian fleet — which the Delphians seemed 
to have claimed as their special contribution to 
the cause. 

To the above list of shirkers and refusers the 
Thessalians but partially belong, inasmuch as 
they yielded under necessity. Herewith we 
come to the Greek battle-line. 

3. This was first in Thessaly, the Greeks 



398 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

having resolved to defend the pass of Olympus, 
to which Athenian and Lacedemonian soldiers 
were sent. Then it was abandoned, as soon as it 
became known to them that there was another 
pass by which their position was rendered unten- 
able. Themistocles was in command of the 
Athenians and we may suppose that he saw no 
hope in the situation. 

Next the Greeks settle upon a new line of 
defense; they were to hold the pass at Ther- 
mopylae by land, and to occupy the strait at 
Artemisium by sea. These two places were not 
far from each other, and both were narrow and 
defensible by a small number of men. Such was 
the battle-line settled upon by the Greeks, where 
** they resolved to await the barbarian." 

The fiery ordeal applied to the Greek world in 
this account of its mustering brings out strongly 
who are the true bearers of the Greek idea. The 
sifting is relentless, being the work of the spirit 
itself ; some unite with the Persian through 
sympathy and some through fear; others refuse 
to co-operate with their countrymen through 
selfishness, through indifference, through too 
great an opinion of their importance. All such 
are remorselessly stricken from the roll of honor, 
and the historian is seen fulfilling his great task 
as a kind of worl'd-judge, who calmly and impar- 
tially sets down the names of the guilty and 
transmits them to all time. For in this record 



BOOK SEVENTH, 399 

there is most emphatically a judgment, a sort of 
Last Judgment which separates the noble from 
the ignoble, and puts the one set into its historic 
Paradise, and the other into its historic Inferno. 
Weltgeschichte is Weltgericht, says a famous 
German philosopher; World-History is World- 
Judgment. So Herodotus in his way metes out 
reward and punishment for eternity. 

W^e observe that the great conquest of the 
Athenians in this Book is the conquest of the 
Delphic Oracle, which they compel (the word is 
not too strong) to take back the unfavorable 
response. This fact hints that Athens is really 
greater than the Oracle and truer to Greek spirit, 
and prophesies that the Oracle of new Greece 
will be at Athens, vet in the form of something 
higher than the Oracle (say art, poetry, phi- 
losophy). The Athenian will no longer accept 
the Delphic utterance as final for them ; and if 
it be accepted (as in case of the ^' wooden wall " ) 
it must be interpreted into their spirit. Clearly 
Athens has transcended Delphi, and will soon 
manifest its rise out of the oracular into the 
artistic and philosophic expression of the Hellenic 
soul. 

HI. 

Very distinctly does this Seventh Book show 
the two Musterings, Persian and Greek, with the 
advance of each toward the actual battle-line in 



400 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

its twofold character, on land and sea. The 
Greeks have already taken position on this line 
and the Persians advance to the conflict. The 
Greeks will be compelled to abandon both their 
stations, on land and on sea ; the enemy cannot 
be barred out of G,reece at the border. Spartan 
bravery alone cannot save the Hellenic world. 
The grand event now to be narrated is the battle 
of Thermopylae ; but before it takes place, the 
historian describes a number of preliminary oc- 
currences. This third portion embraces the rest 
of the Book (179-238). 

1. These preliminary movements and events 
may be thrown into four groups in successive 
order; they being concluded, the two armies will 
stand face to face, and the battle will begin 
(179-200). 

( 1 ) The first blood of the war is spilled on 
the sea. The Persian fleet sets out from Therma, 
ten of the fastest vessels overtake three Greek 
ships, which are acting as sentinels at the island 
Sciathus ; all three Greek ships are captured by 
the barbarians though the crew of the Athenian 
vessel escape by running their craft ashore. 
Rather an ominous encounter for a beginning; 
the Greeks are alarmed and retire from their 
station at Artemisium into the straits called the 
Euripus, which they prepare to defend ( 179-83). 

(2) We now pass to the Persian land force 
(184), of which the historian here gives the 



BOOK SEVENTH. 401 

numbers. Likewise he enumerates the naval 
force. The sum total of fighting men he places 
at th'e enormous figure 2,641,610; he reckons 
the non-combatants to have been as many more. 
Very naturally these numbers are distrusted by 
modern historians, who have conjectured various 
devices for lessening them. This enumeration 
( 184-7) has been preceded by the one at Doris- 
cus (60). Since then, however, there have been 
many additions from the countries lying along 
the line of march. Just at present the Persian 
host has reached its hio^hest fio^ure; storms 
will soon lessen it, and combats by land and 
sea, and doubtless desertions, especially from 
the European contingents. So . the enumera- 
tion is given at the flood-tide of the invasion, 
when it first strikes the Greek battle-line, at 
Thermopylae and Sepias (the latter being the 
Persian naval station). 

It is, of course, a very difiScult matter to ascer- 
tain whence Herodotus derived these numbers. 
Did he have access to any Persian documents on 
the subject? Or were they gathered by him from 
hearsay? He must have conversed w^ith many 
people, both Persian and Greek, who took part 
in the expedition. The method of that enumera- 
tion at Doriscus remains very suspicious ; it seems 
to imply that there were no muster-rolls, and 
no daily reports of numbers present. 

26 



402 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

(3) We next turn to the movement of the 
fleet (188-195), which has a double experience'. 
Along the coast of Sepias the Persian fleet was 
overtaken by a terrific storm which did great 
injury, " destroying not less than four hundred 
ships, innumerable lives, and an untold amount 
of treasure." To the Greeks this was clearly 
a divine intervention in their favor; but who 
was the God? The Athenians claimed it as the 
work of their '* son-in-law Boreas ; ' ' Poseidon the 
Deliverer had a share in the honor ; the Persian 
Magi, by the instruction of the lonians, sacrificed 
to Thetis and the Nereids, to whom all the coast 
of Sepias belonged; the Delphians also had a 
claim, having prayed to the winds. No outsider 
can settle the controversy ; but one may well note 
that the Greek Gods are going to take a hand in 
the conflict, as they did of old ( in the Iliad, for 
instance); the providential side has strongly 
asserted itself without any question, neither the 
ancient historian nor the modern reader can 
neglect it. 

A second experience of that ill-fated Persian 
fleet: fifteen of its ships sail by mistake into the 
midst of the Greek squadron which had hastilv 
returned to Artemisium (their naval station on 
the northern coast of Euboea), and are easily 
captured. Another providential gift, thinks the 
Greek; very encouraging it must be to seethe 
Gods entering the struggle against the Orient 



BOOK SEVENTH, 403 

once more (for that is what they did in the 
ancient Trojan War). 

(4) The movement by land is next taken up 
(196-201); Xerxes marches forward through 
Thessaly till he comes to Malis opposite the pass 
of Thermopylae, where he pitches camp. The 
two sides now stand in each other's presence, the 
battle is about to take place. 

In the background the historian has not failed 
to set forth the m3^thical element of which this 
Thessalian region is the scene, both by land and 
sea. The coast of Sepias is the home of the sea- 
goddess Thetis, whom Peleus carried off from 
these parts, and Thetis was the mother of Achil- 
les, the hero of the Iliad. Not far away is the 
spot where Jason is said to have abandoned Her- 
cules, in the famous Argonautic expedition, which 
was also directed against a part of Asia. Xerxes 
himself listens to Greek legends told him at Alos 
in Achaea (197) ; near by his camp, in the Trach- 
inian territory, is the place where Hercules died 
(on Mount Oeta); the legend declares that the 
stream Dyras just here rose up from the earth in 
order "to assist him when burning" (198). 
Thus the locality of Thermopylae is full of Greek 
heroic legend ; the two great mythical expeditions 
against Asia, the Argonautic and the Trojan, are 
suggested, and every Greek soul has this legend- 
ary stream pouring through it and mingling with 
the present. Now the Asiatic has invaded the 



404 THE FATHEB OF RISTOBY. 

very territory of the heroes ; surely the hitter 
will assist their people in the present emergency. 
In such fashion does the mythical background 
fuse with the historical reality. 

2. The battle of Thermopylae is recorded 
(201-233) with its immediate antecedents and 
results. 

( 1 ) The historian first calls the muster-roll of 
the Greeks who are present ; all are commanded 
by Leonidas, the Spartan king, who has with 
him three hundred Spartans. At first he thinks 
of retreating to the Isthmus (of Corinth), but 
gives up the idea when he sees that the Phocians 
and Locrians, whose countries would thus be left 
to the Persian (207), w^ere deeply indignant at 
the proposition. 

In contrast with this historical statement, 
Xerxes is here introduced havins^ a conversation 
withDemaratus, who assures him that these men 
are going to fight. An epical touch again, pre- 
paratory to the conflict at hand ; it corresponds 
in style to the first portion of the Book. 

Thus the two different ways of literary hand- 
ling (Persian and Greek) as already exemplified 
in the two previous portions of the Book, are 
here put together (202-9). 

(2) The special account of the battle and of its 
various stages is given with distinctness, (a) 
The assault of the Medes and Cisseans; first dajs 
Persian defeat (210). The assault by the Per- 



BOOK SEVENTH. 405 

siaii '* Immortals ;" again a Persian defeat. In 
this account the strong difference between the 
Persian mass and the Greek order is brought out 
(211-2) ; the king " leaps twice from his throne" 
as he witnesses the fight, {h) The road over the 
mountains flanking the Greek position is discov- 
ered to the Persian by a Greek named Ephialtes, 
accursed to all time for his traitorious act ( 213-8). 
The Phocians guarding this road retreat and let 
the Persians pass, (c) The fact is made known 
to the Greeks that they are flanked. The Spar- 
tans stay, the rest of the Greeks depart ; whether 
they left of their accord or were sent away by 
Leonidas, remained an unsettled question in the 
historian's time. But the seven hundred Thes- 
pians refused to leave, they stayed and perished 
with the three hundred Spartans (219-222). 
Also Megistias, the augur, stayed, though dis- 
missed by Leonidas. (d) The final struggle 
takes place (223-5). The Greeks with reckless 
bravery leave the wall at the narrow part of the 
pass between the mountains and the s^a, and 
advance into the wdde part of the defile. Here 
the battle continues till the Persians wdth Ephial- 
tes approach in the rear. Then the Greeks 
except the Thebans, retreat to a hillock, *^ on 
wdiich the stone lion now stands to the memorv 
of Leonidas," Avhere they perish to the last man. 
(e) Special mention (226-33). Herodotus is 
fond of giving the name of the doer of the deed. 



406 THE FATHEE OF HISTORY. 

be it good or bad; he individualizes. The 
Greeks are not an indiscriminate mass like the 
Persian army, where '* no regard was paid to the 
individual perishing." One Spartan survived, 
his name and fate are given. *' I have ascer- 
tained the names of the whole three hundred," 
which were engraved on a monument at Sparta 
erected about the year 440 B. C. (still seen 
by the traveler Pausanias). Herodotus prob- 
ably saw this monument not long after its 
erection, indeed he may have been present 
at the ceremonies over the remains of Leo- 
nidas, when they were brought back to Sparta 
in the mentioned year. That would have 
furnished a good opportunity for collecting his- 
toric facts and anecdotes about the battle, and 
the historian probably seized it. Certainly he 
has a much clearer conception of the battle of 
Thermopylae, than he has of Marathon. It is 
likely, too, that he visited the battle-ground and 
studied its topography. 

3. The historian passes to the Persian side and 
shows the inner workinofs there in a dialog-ue 
(234-8). That is, the epical manner is again 
introduced; Xerxes sends for Demaratus, the 
Spartan, and asks concerning these Spartan war- 
riors, whose numbers are placed by the latter at 
eight thousand (not including the Lacedemonians 
and the Helots). " In what way shall we conquer 
them with the least trouble? " asks the king. 



BOOK SEVENTH. 407 

Such a question does indeed imply a change in 
his temper. Demaratus gives the best advice 
possible: Take the island Cyth era off the La- 
conic coast, and harass them from that point. 
But Achaemenes, brother of Xerxes, thwarts this 
project and tries to undermine the influence of 
Demaratus, charging all the Greeks with being 
envious, which is just the trait which he shows 
himself. 

In this dialogue (237), Xerxes states his view 
of citizenship and friendship: ** The citizen 
envies his fellow-citizen who is prosperous, but 
a friend (or guest) is delighted at the prosperity 
of his fellow-friend." An Oriental view surely; 
the Persian had no use for Greek citizenship 
with its equality, begetter of envy; but friend- 
ship could exist between master and slave. 

Thus the Book ends with the attempt to set 
forth in fictitious form the movement in the mind 
of the Persian monarch, after the strui^o^le at 
Thermopylae. Xerxes overrules Spartan advice 
in reference to Sparta, and takes the resolution 
not to separate the naval force, but to let it 
advance in the same way as before. The abso- 
lute sovereign directs all, as will be seen, to his 
own fatality. So the Seventh Book opens and 
concludes in epic fashion, yet with an introduc- 
tion and an appendix. 

This appendix (239) simply brings up a part 
of the account which was previously left out in 



408 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

its proper place. It tells how the Spartans, first 
of all the Greeks, came to know of the intended 
expedition through Demaratus. But it must 
have been generally felt throughout the Greek 
world that a Persian invasion was likely to take 
place at any time. The conflict was at hand and 
had been intensifying for generations. The story 
of the waxen tablet of Demaratus, whose purport 
was divined by a woman, Gorgo, wife otLeoni- 
das, is one of those entertaining personal anec- 
dotes, which the historian has the habit of taking 
up into his narrative, and which seemg to be 
derived from his visit to Sparta. 

As regards the battle of Thermopylae, the 
reader is moved most powerfully to both feeling 
and reflection. Leonidas and his Three Hundred, 
who fought here, have produced a profound im- 
pression through all the ages since ; we are not 
to forget, however, that seven hundred Thespians 
stayed and perished with them. Why not a 
greater force present? The Spartans were cele- 
brating one of their festivals (the Carnean), and 
the Olympic games were also being held at the 
time. Very curious is the fact: the religious 
functions must be performed though the enemy 
be at the gates of Greece. Consequently an 
advance s^uard is sent, the rest are to follow. 

It is not necessary to tell this story after Her- 
odotus whose account has taken a lasting place 
in Uoiversal History. What is the reason of itr 



BOOK SEVENTH. 409 

power? Here is the idea of sacrifice for the 
great cause; not one man merely, but a band of 
men. It was their sacrifice to their conception 
of dut}^ ; the law was their master, the monarch 
was within, hence the strong contrast with the 
Persian mass. 

Still, Thermopylae did not save, anything ; it 
was a sacrifice indeed, but an unnecessary sacri- 
fice. Greece is tragic if its destiny be read by 
the light of Thermopylae; it will die bravely 
lighting, and that will be the end of it. The 
Orient will take possession of the Greek heritage 
as far as the Spartan deed is concerned. 

Leonidas follows the Oracle literally, which 
says that one of the kings must perish. There 
is no interpretation of the Oracle, such as The- 
mistocles gave; the letter is adhered to, though 
it killeth. So the Carnean festival and the 
Olympic games cannot be omitted or deferred ; 
law has become a despot in the Spartan soul. 

To be sure, there was a tendency in the Greek 
to play everything ideally in order to prepare 
himself for the reality. War was a kind of fest- 
ival, with its contest, its victors, its crown, its 
personal skill and bravery. At Thermopylae the 
bravest man is designated by name, though he 
be merely a private man in the ranks ; the palm 
of excellence is bestowed for all time. This his- 
tory of Herodotus as alread}^ remarked, is a kind 
of judgment on the participants of the great 



410 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

Olympic game called the Persian war; in many 
ways it adjusts itself to such a conception present 
to every Greek. 

We mav well call this Seventh Book endino: in 
Thermopylae the Spartan Book of the present 
History. It shows Spartan character at its best, 
yet w^ith all its limits. These limits the rigid 
hide-bound Spartan cannot of himself trans- 
cend, yet they must be transcended, if Greece is 
not to be tragic. The Athenian will reach 
over the Spartan limit, and lead Greece out of 
its impending tragic destiny to victory. 

What impression has all this produced upon 
the Persian monarch? There is a distinct letting 
down of pride; here are men w^ho cannot be 
made slaves. Again he feels the limitation; all 
his power can merely inflict death upon the free- 
man. Demaratus is once more introduced <2fivino: 
advice, after it is asked for, since Xerxes is now 
ready to listen. But the advice is not follow^ed 
by the king, cannot be; the seizing of Cythera 
and the threatening of the Spartan territory 
would make it a w-ar of skill, and the king would 
give up his principle of conquering directly by 
mass. So the king follow^s the counsel of 
Achaemenes, his brother, Avho still clings to the 
Persian view of the invincibilitv of number, in 
spite of the strong object lesson just received. 

The reader is recommended to pay special at- 
tention to the structure of the present Book in 



BOOK SEVENTH, 411 

order to catch its art as well as its meaning. 
For a further help, we shall set down in the form 
of a brief tabular outline the three divisions just 
given and their leading subdivisions. 

I. The Mustering of the Orient (1-131). 

1. Xerxes in Asia (1-45). 

(1) Internal Thread. The mind 

of the king (1-18). 
Speeches for and against 
the invasion. 

(2) External Thread. From Susa 

to Abydus (19-45). 

2. The crossing of Xerxes from Asia 

into Europe (46-100). 

(1) Internal Thread. The mind 

of the king (46-53). Talk 
with Artabarius. 

(2) External Thread. Across the 

Hellespont (54-100). 

3. Xerxes in Europe (101-131). 

(1) Internal Thread. The mind 

of the king (101-104). 
Talk with Demaratus. 

(2) External Thread. From 

Doriscus toward Greece 
(105-131). 
II. The Mustering of the Greeks (132-178). 
1. Those who give and those who re- 
fuse earth and water to the Persian 
(132-147). 



412 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

2. The Neutrals who neither submit 

nor refuse to submit (148-171). 

3. The true defenders of Hellas bein^^ 

sifted out, rally on their two bat- 
tle lines (172-8). 
III. The battle of Thermopylae, with attend- 
ant circumstances before and after 
(179-238). 

1. Various preliminary movements on 

sea and land (179-200). 

2. Thermopylae — the locality, the 

contestants, and the contest (201- 
233). 

3. Epical conclusion of the Book. The 

mind of Xerxes. Dialogue with 
Demaratus and Achaemenes ( 234- 
8). Anecdote of Demaratus ( 239). 

Thus, in its conclusion, the Book seems to 
come back to the epical manner of its beginning, 
the object of which is to set forth the mind of 
Xerxes in its special workings, as well as to hint 
in a general way the total Persian consciousness. 
It is manifest that the pride of the Oriental 
monarch has' received something of a shock by 
the contest at Thermopylae; a very rational ques- 
tion he asks Demaratus about the way to con- 
quer the Spartans, but he relapses soon into his 
Persian fatuity through the words of his brother 
Achaemenes. 



BOOK SEVENTH. 413 

The reader will note with what care and repe- 
tition, and sometimes repeated repetition, we 
have sought to impress upon his mind the struc- 
tural movement of the present Book. Let not his 
patience fail at the anxiety of the author to help 
him grasp what is fundamental in this very im- 
portant stage of the History. We hold that the 
architectonic power of the historian reaches its 
highest point in the Seventh Book, though other 
Books and indeed the whole w^ork are grand man- 
ifestations of that same power. But now the 
mighty event, for which the whole previous His- 
tory is only a vast preparation, is about to trans- 
pire, and it must be recorded w^orthily ; the his- 
torian must show himself the true successor of 
the poet of Iliad, whose theme is also at bottom 
just this same conflict between Orient and Occi- 
dent. Most marvelously interwrought are the 
epical and the historical elements, though, of 
course, the whole is History, not Poetry. A true 
child of Homer is this Herodotus ; his construc- 
tive ability is poetic, w^hile his material is the 
historic fact. 



BOOK EIGHTH, 

In a number of respects this Book shows a 
contrast with the preceding one, which ended, as 
ah'eady stated, in a tragic manner. Surely there 
is no salvation for Greece, if Thermopylae gives 
the keynote of the war. The Spartans had con- 
trol, not one Athenian was present in the fight 
apparently. But now we come again to an 
Athenian Book, and the decision of the struggle 
passes from land to sea, from Sparta to Athens. 
Xerxes at present controls Greek territory to the 
Isthmus of Corinth, the Spartans have not kept 
him back though they have died. But the Per-* 
sian king does not control the sea, and, as we 
shall soon discover, cannot control it; this is the 
fact that settles the success of the invasion. 

The Athenians have become a marine people, 
their character has been trained by the sea, 
whose mastery requires skill, versatility, courage, 
(414) 



BOOK EIGHTH. 415 

readiness to meet new dangers. The Persians 
are a land people, so are the Lacedemonians; 
the greater has at Thermopylae overwhelmed the 
lesser. The Athenians are, however, both a 
land people and a sea people, we may say; they 
show, in the present conflict, the solidity and 
persistence of the former, the adjustability and 
resomxefulness of the latter. Already at Mara- 
thon they manifested what they could do on land ; 
now they are to reveal what they are able to do 
by sea. 

The Athenian character concentrates and cul- 
minates in a most marvelous individual, which 
the time calls forth as the leader — Themistocles. 
Hardly has a greater man appeared in history. 
We have already seen him commanding the 
Athenian contingent in Thessaly and retiring 
before the Persian advance. He must have felt 
then that the land was no place to make head- 
way against Persia. He was the father of the 
Athenian navy, and now he takes his own off- 
spring in hand. Of all men the most resource- 
ful he appears, yet he has the moral drawbacks 
which seem to come with such a character; he 
will take and give bribes, he looks out for him- 
self in his bravest moments ; while destroying 
the Persian army, he makes friends with the 
Persians. Herodotus has remorselessly set 
down all his moral offenses, and seems to take 
special care to put behind every great deed of his 



416 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

some selfish motive. For this reason it has been 
questioned whether our historian has given a 
wholly fair picture of Themistocles. Still the 
place of the latter in the struggle is shown to be 
supreme, altogether overtopping any Greek or any 
Persian, for he is first victorious over his own 
side, and then over the enemy. 

This Book is, accordingl}^ the Book of Salami.-;, 
of the sea-fight, which really put a stop to the 
movement of the Persian nation westward. More- 
over it heralds a new kind of warfare, which be- 
longs peculiarly to the Occident. Sea-fights had 
occurred long before Salamis, but here it is naval 

skill which rises into prominence, and decides 

* 

the contest. The Book falls into the following 
order : — 

I. The movements on sea and land from the 
battle of Artemisium till after the 
battle of Salamis ( 1-9(5 ). 

1. The first stage of affairs after Ther- 

mopylae ( 1-39 ) . 

( 1 ) On the sea ; battle of Arte- 

misium (1-23). 

(2) On land; Persian army 

divides: one part reaches 
Delphi (24-39). 

2. The second stage ; movement on both 

sides to Attica (40-55). 
(1) On the sea; Geeeks retire to 
Salamis (40-9). 



BOOK EIGHTH. 417 

(2) Oil land; Xerxes marches to 
Athens (50-55). 
3. Third stage ; the battle of Salamis with 
the doings of Themistocles (56-96). 

1. Greek commanders first resolve 

to fight at Salamis, and then 
change their mind. Persian 
fleet comes up (56-74). 

2. Themistocles compels the fight 

on both sides ( 75-96 ) , choos- 
ing time and place. 
II. After the battle is an intermediate period 
of relaxation and of readjusting move- 
ments on both sides (97-132). 

1. First stage; a mutual relaxation of 

the grip on both sides (97-112). 

(1) Persian; the flight of Xer- 

xes resolved on (97-107). 

( 2 ) Greek ; the victors withdraw 

from pursuit (108-112). 

2. Second stage; both sides at rest 

(113-125). 

( 1 ) Persian ; the army retires from 

Athens to Thessaly. Mar- 
donius with select troops 
remains. Xerxes flees for 
Asia (113-120). 

(2) Greek; fleet returns to Sal- 

amis ; rewards distributed 
(121-5). 
27 



418 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

3. Third stas^e ; some distant echoes of 
the struggle ; complete final separa- 
tion of the contestants (126-132). 

(1) Persian; some fighting along 

the line in the north ; the 
crossing into Asia (126- 
30). 

(2) Greek ; fleet refuses to go fur- 

ther than Delos (131-2). 
III. Beginnings of the new conflict under 
Mardonius (133-144). 

1. The Persian consults Greek Oracles 

(133-5). 

2. The Persian attempts to detach the 

Athenians from the rest of the 
Greeks (136-144). 

Thus we catch the bearing of the present Book, 
the great positive fact of which is the battle of 
Salamis, with movements before and after. In- 
deed this battle is the culmination of the whole 
war, which has swept steadily forward from Asia 
through Europe up to Salamis, where the blow 
is delivered which causes the mighty armament 
both naval and military, to reel back inta Asia, 
whence it came. Even further we mav extend 
our thought of this event, and regard it as the 
decisive action which proclaims that the Orient 
is not to rule the Occident. To be sure, the war 
is not yet over, though it is decided ; the Greeks 



BOOK EIGHTH. 419 

possess the sea, and therewith are saved. The 
islands of the Aegaean can be held only by 
naval supremacy, which is now lost to the 
Persian. 

The above divisions of the Book, we shall de- 
velop into fuller detail, following the text of the 
historian. 

I. 

As already indicated, the first portion gives 
the movement by sea and by land from Artemis- 
ium and Thermopylae to Athens and Salamis. 
The first battle-line is broken through by the 
Persians and abandoned by the Greeks ; both 
sides come together in and around Salamis where 
the naval struggle takes place. 

The structure of this portion of the Eighth 
Book is somewhat intricate and resembles the 
structure of the first portion of the Seventh 
Book. There are two threads, the sea and the 
land, each with its own movement, which has 
three distinct stages, in the sweep from the 
northern battle-line to Salamis. 

1. The first stage shows the situation by sea 
and land after Thermopylae together with the 
naval conflict. The latter is narrated first, and 
is called the battle of Artemisium, being the 
prelude to Salamis. 

(1) The muster-roll of the Greek ships is 
given in which Athens is seen to have the 



420 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

greater number (counting the twenty furnished 
by them to the Chalcidians) at the start, 
and a still larger preponderance at the end. In 
addition she furnishes the spirit and the brain, 
still she has not the chief command, which she 
I'esigns for the sake of unity. This mighty act 
of renunciation is her chief glory, and really 
gives her the secret, compelling power of the 
time. She possesses also the intellect of Greece 
in the person of her commander Themistocles, 
who sees that the right place to fight the battle is 
the narrow strait in which the number of the 
enemy's ships is the enemy's disadvantage. 
Still he has to conquer his own side first ; his 
allies must be deceived into doing the right thing, 
or be bribed into doing it. The trouble is, 
authority and capacity are divorced, the com- 
mander and the wise man are two different per- 
sons. Athens is the soul of the fleet, and Them- 
istocles is its mind. He takes his means to 
accomplish his end, the question being, shall I 
be a moralist or a patriot? 

So the fight by sea starts. First a little rush 
in the late of afternoon for a test ; the Greeks 
take thirty ships, surely a good omen. Then 
comes a terrific storm whose violence chiefly falls 
upon the unprotected vessels of the barbarians ; 
the Gods are undoubtedly taking a hand in the 
contest. Finally on the third day, a severe battle 
is fought, apparently with the balance in favor 



BOOK EIGHTH. 421 

of the Greeks. But Thermopylae being lost, 
they have to withdraw southward to Greece. 

Such is the preliminary naval conflict, in which 
several things come out clear. The Athenians 
are essentially the masters of the situation, the 
sea is to them no Thermopylae, andThemistocles 
is no Leonidas. The manner of overcomino^ the 
Persian fleet is taught by experience ; it must be 
attacked in a strait where its numbers will simply 
be an impediment. Where is such a place? Sala- 
mis, whose battle will be a repetition of Arte- 
misium. Such is the experience here gained, 
very useful ; one can well imagine that the 
Athenians sailed homeward with forebodins^s 
dark enough for their city, yet seeing rifts in the 
clouds, which let some rays of golden hope drop 
down over the sea. 

(2) The narrative next passes to the land (24), 
and recounts the doings of Xerxes and his host 
after the battle of Thermopylae. He permits 
whoever wishes, to pass from the fleet to the 
land and take a view of the dead Spartans, '* the 
senseless men who hoped to overthrow the king's 
power." Still he employs a trick to conceal his 
own loss. 

The land march for Greece then begins, and 
the army reaches Panopeae in Phocis, where it 
divides, part going to Delphi and the rest mov- 
ing towards Athens. These two places may 
indeed be called the two centers of Greek civili- 



422 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

zation — the one is the instinctive Oracle, passing 
out, the other is self-conscious Intelligence, 
coming in. The Persian struck at both, and 
failed in both blows. 

Yet very different is the character of the two 
repulses. At Delphi the God himself enters the 
conflict, the sacred arms " which it was not law- 
ful for an}^ mortal to touch," were miraculously 
taken down and lay before the temple; crags 
fell from the mountains above, a war-shout came 
from Minerva's fane, and the enemy fled in a 
great panic. The repulse from Delphi was 
supernatural, the work of the God without human 
aid, for he declared that he would "look after 
his own," and nearly all theDelphians ran away. 
Very different is the repulse of the Persian at 
x^thenian Salamis, as we shall see; that is su- 
premely the work of man's intelligence; nay, the 
Oracle first with its discoura^inof and then with 
its ambiguous responses had to be interpreted and 
transcended by those epoch-making Athenians. 
The transition from the old to the new Hellas we 
may read in the battles at Delphi and at 
Salamis. 

2. The historian brings before us the sea 
forces of the Greeks and the land forces of the 
Persians at a common point in Attica (40-55). 
The kins: takes the external Athens, its houses 
and locality, but the Athenians are in their ships, 
out of his reach, yet in sight. In the strongest 



BOOK EIGHTH. 423 

way the situation shows the triumph of mind; 
let the king burn their city, they can and will 
build another and a better. Such is the protec- 
tion now given by those wooden walls which 
Themistocles has caused them to construct. 

( 1 ) The Grecian fleet moves from Artemisium 
to Salamis ** at the request of the Athenians," 
who find the selfish Peloponnesians fortifying 
the Isthmus and leaving Athens to her fate. 
But a number of new ships appear, and again the 
muster-roll is given. The Peloponnesians of 
the fleet propose to desert Salamis, as they de- 
serted Athens on land. Here is the problem 
which Themistocles has to meet ; he must con- 
quer his own people and compel them to give 
battle in the right place (40-49). 

(2) The army of Xerxes reaches Athens (50) 
where a few citizens have chosen to remain and 
defend themselves in the Acropolis behind some 
planks and stakes, deeming such to be the wooden 
wall intended by the Oracle. But they are cap- 
tured and destroyed, after a valiant defense; 
they did not interpret the Oracle aright, taking it 
altogether too literally. So they died the death 
of heroes, like the Spartans at Thermopylae. 
Here too miracles transpire : the sacred serpent 
leaves the Acropolis, and the sacred olive, burnt 
in the conflagration of the temple, sends up a 
new shoot a cubit long in a day. 

3. In the two previous stages of the n:iove- 



424 TEE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

ment to Salamis we have followed the sea and 
the land in regular order; but in the third stage 
at which we have now arrived, the structure 
changes somewhat, the same elements are pres- 
ent, but are brought before us in a different 
order. Xerxes is here, active, yet rather help- 
less, with his enemies in their ships, out of his 
way; the Persian fleet comes up, and takes posi- 
tion ; the Peloponnesians complete their wall at 
the Isthmus. It is a very lively picture, with 
strong dramatic coloring; narrative repeatedly 
goes over into dialogue. 

There is one person around whom the move- 
ment gathers irresistibly. Not the Greek king, 
not the Spartan commander, it is Themistocles, 
who becomes the hero more than ever. He, 
though not the official admiral, compels the un- 
willing Peloponnesian to fight where and when he 
wishes ; for the Persian enemy likewise he selects 
the time and place for the battle. 

This part of the Book will naturally organize 
itself along the line of Themistocles' doings, 
since he is really the moving power. A great 
variety of matters go to make up the picture, but 
he is the central figure, the one greatest man, 
bearer of the World- Spirit, and not alone of 
nationality. 

(1) The Greeks at Salamis have had a council, 
and have resolved to go to the Isthmus and fight 
there. The spirit is that each contingent wishes 



BOOK EIGHTH, 425 

to fight for its own separate city, and not for all 
Greece. The spirit of individualism is tearing 
them to pieces ; one people alone, the Athenians, 
seem animated with a Pan-Hellenic feeling, and 
Themistocles just now is its representative. At 
once he starts to work to annul the decree, " for 
if the Peloponnesians remove the fleet from 
Salamis, they will, each, betake themselves to 
their own cities." Such is the true view of 
Athenian Mnesiphilus, here recorded. In the 
second council Themistocles makes a great 
speech, stating the innermost fact of the 
situation that "the whole success of the 
war depends on our fleet," and threatening 
that the Athenians will quit Greece altogether 
and go to Siris in Italy, *' which, the oracles say, 
is to be inhabited by us " — which oracles, how- 
ever, were never verified. But Themistocles 
gains his point; Eurybiades, the Spartan ad- 
miral, resolves to stay. Nor must we forget 
that characteristic sentence of his. ** To those 
deliberating reasonably, success usually comes; 
but if men deliberate unreasonably, not even the 
God will come to the aid of human caprices." 

As the counterpart to this speech, follow divine 
signs, miracles, prayers, holy ceremonies. There 
was an earthquake, all the Gods were invoked 
and specially the local heroes of Salamis; the 
local heroes of Egina the Aeacidae, were sent 
for and brought in a ship ; above all the mystic 



426 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

procession was heard, and a great cloud of dust 
rose along the sacred way of Eleusis, *' as if of 
thirty thousand men." So the supernatural ele- 
ment is not wanting in this mighty conflict; nor 
is the rational principle lacking ; indeed both are 
co-operating for the one great end. 

The Persian fleet passes from Artemisium to 
Athens, where the army had already arrived. 
Here we have a consultation on the Persian side, 
the question being, Shall we fight the Greek fleet 
in this place? One person only, Artemisia the 
queen of Halicarnassus, gave a dissuasive answer, 
stating the difiiculties with great frankness, 
which pleased the king. Still the latter issued 
orders for the battle to take place. 

(2) In the Greek fleet the discontent of the 
Peloponnesians breaks out into open reproaches, 
and a new council is called in which the former 
resolution to stay at Salamis is overruled. Now 
comes the master stroke of Themistocles to 
make them stay and fight there. He sent a 
trusted servant, Sicinnus by name, to the Per- 
sians with a message. The result was threefold : 
first, the Persian fleet at once prepared for a 
battle on the morrow ; second, the Greek fleet 
was surrounded in the night by the enemj^'s 
ships and could not escape ; third, Themistocles 
pretended to the Persians to send the message in 
the interest of the king, from whom, in case of 
necessity, he might claim hereafter the reward 



BOOK EIGHTH. 427 

of a benefactor. Thus he was already preparing 
a place to leap upon, should matters turn out 
amiss. 

The council was still sitting when word came 
that the passage outward was no longer open. 
Aristides first brings the news, then a Tenian ship 
deserting: from the Persian, confirms it. Three 
different councils have been held, but all have at 
last to do what Themistocles says. His strata- 
2:em forces the Greeks into union and into a 
battle for the whole country ; he must save them 
against their own folly. The Spartan has a sin- 
gle means, the Athenian has many means ; the 
one perishes, the other triumphs. Themistocles 
has no moral sense, jQt he has patriotism in the 
highest degree, when the crisis is on ; but when 
the conflict is over, he must look out for a day 
of reckoning for his moral delinquencies. So 
wdiile hittino^ the Persian on the head a blow 
which sends him reeling out of Europe, Themis- 
tocles prepares for a future emergency, a possi- 
ble flight to Persia, which will indeed become 
actual. Such is the duplicity of intellect in this 
man, he sees the two sides in everything; his 
advice to fight is made good for both sides, and 
his later advice to Xerxes to flee is good for 
Greek and Persian. Sophist that he is, he can 
give the best reason to each party, and make 
both believe him and follow him. 

The conflict takes place (83-96), must take 



428 THE FATHEB OF EI8T0BY. 

place. . Themistocles is the gigantic figure com- 
pelling and controlling the action ; he holds the 
heads of both contestants in his hands and knocks 
them together. To be sure, he strikes the harder 
blow against the Persian, who now finds out that 
he cannot conquer Greece. The battle of Sala- 
mis is essentially the work of Themistocles, 
backed, of course, mightily by the Athenians. 
What constitutes a people was never ipore truly 
seen than when they, without city and country, 
stood on board their ships, their wooden walls, 
and conquered. The spirit was there, and had 
built those walls and would build new walls and 
a city anywhere. Already we have noted that 
they represented something far beyond them- 
selves, something of which they were hardly con- 
scious ; they were the instruments of a new stage 
of the World's progress. 

II. 

The battle having been fought, the historian 
gives an account of what takes place on both 
sides, Persian and Greek, after the great victory. 
The fio:ht was a terrible strain for both, and it is 
no wonder that a kind of relaxation and unwill- 
insrness to act set in afterwards : the result was 



& 



indeed so stunnins^ that both antasfonists suffered 
for a time a sort of paralysis of will. Moreover 
winter was approaching and the season invited to 
rest. Our historian will trace this period in a 



BOOK EIGHTH. 429 

series of short sketches, passing rapidly from one 
side to the other three times, and thereby show- 
ing both the succession and the contemporaneous- 
ness of certain events (97-132). 

1. Both sides, Persian and Greek, are seen 
slowly letting go their hold of each other, and 
drawing back after their great effort (97-112). 

(1) On the Persian side, this fact comes out 
plainly in the present attitude of the king, who 
seems to have been thoroughly frightened and 
demoralized by the unexpected outcome of the 
battle. He is afraid *' of being shut up in 
Europe;" no wonder that he feels uncomfort- 
able; he now fully realizes that Europe does not 
belong to him, and he wishes to get out of it as 
soon as possible. 

Again we have an epical treatment of the situ- 
ation, which reveals the inner workings of the 
mind of the king. Mardonius addresses him, 
craftily advising flight, " with the greatest part 
of the army ; " but the same general also declares, 
*' I shall deliver to you Greece enslaved, having 
selected from the. Persian host three hundred 
thousand men." Mardonius sees his opportun- 
ity, as his ambition is to make himself ** satrap 
of Hellas." Queen Artemisia is also introduced 
with her advice at this juncture of events ; she 
flatters her royal master with that delicate touch 
of '' having burned Athens, for which you under- 
took the expedition," and advises him to return 



430 THE FAT HE B OF HISTORY. 

home. Xerxes was of course *' pleased with 
her advice, for she happened to say the very 
things which he designed." Clearly Artemisia 
knows her man, that Halicarnassian queen is not 
devoid of a subtle insight into character. So the 
king honors her specially, for she has coated 
over the bitter pill of humiliation with the sweet- 
est covering of adulation, w^oman that she is as 
well as Oriental warrior. 

It is highly probable that Herodotus picked 
up this story of Artemisia and Xerxes in 
his native Halicarnassus. The exploits of the 
queen must have been the talk of the town, 
embellished doubtless with many fictitious turns. 
Also the story of the vengeance of Hermotimus, 
interwoven at this point ( 105), is in the nature of 
a current anecdote, showing the hostility of the 
popular mind to certain Persian customs. Peda- 
sus, the native place of Hermotimus, was not far 
from Halicarnassus. 

(2) The Greeks (108-112) expected to con- 
tinue the fiofhtino^ off Salamis, but the fleet of the 
enemy fled rapidly, by the king's order, to pro- 
tect the bridges at the Hellespont. The Greeks 
pursued for a short distance and Themistocles 
favored going at once to the Hellespont and 
destroying the bridges; but the Peloponne- 
sians thought of home, and preferred to let the 
Persians get out of Europe. Hereupon Them- 
istocles changes his tactics, and helps on the 



BOOK EIGHTH. 431 

flight of the Persians by a secret message, seek- 
ing to secure their favor hereafter "if any 
thing should happen to him from the Athenians." 
Such is the motive here assigned to him by the 
historian ; but a doubt will always arise in the 
mind of the reader about its correctness. From 
what sources did Herodotus get all these facts 
concerning Themistocles ? Unquestionably from 
the society surrounding him during his stay in 
Athens. 

It is quite clear, however, that Themistocles 
with his powerful fleet, besieged Andros and 
extorted large sums of money from the islanders. 
Again we behold the greatest Athenian general, 
after heroic devotion and self-denial, turnino:into 
a freebooter, though he has the pretext against 
these towns and islands that they had " med- 
ized." The same fatality lies in him which we 
saw in Miltiades after Marathon. Themistocles 
also will vanish out of sight after this one grand 
success, and at last he himself will *• medize," 
will flee to Persia, seekini>- to undo his pfreatdeed. 
Tragic as Miltiades he is, though the manner of 
his ending be different. This part of his storj^ 
however, is not told by Herodotus, but by the 
latter's o^reat successor, Thucvdides. Somethins: 
of the same character is in Athens herself, which 
character will develop more and more with time, 
and furnish the leading theme of a later portion 
of Greek history. 



432 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

2. In this second stage (113-125) both sides 
are briefly brought before us withdrawing from 
conflict and passing into a state of rest. 

(1) Mardonius with his chosen troops goes 
into winter quarters in Thessaly. Xerxes con- 
tinues his flight, crosses the Hellespont in haste, 
and at last reaches Sardes, in Asia Minor, where 
for the first time apparently since the battle of Sal- 
amis he takes an easy breath. The most humil- 
iating spectacle known to history probably is this 
flight of Xerxes. Considering the way he came 
into Europe and the way he went out, one thinks 
that the contrast could not be greater. The 
former flight of Darius from Scythia is small in 
comparison, and the Moscow retreat is a lesser 
parallel. 

(2) The Greeks return to Salamis (121-5), 
and divide the booty between the Gods and them- 
selves, for the Gods unquestionably lent a hand 
in the fight. Then the fleet sails to the Isthmus 
in order to award the prize of valor to the most 
deserving Greek. Each general voted the first 
prize to himself, for each *' thought himself the 
most valiant; " but a majority voted the second 
prize to' Themistocles. Too good a story to be 
exactly true, one thinks ; but we may accept the 
statement that " the Greeks would not deter- 
mine the matter out of envy," though public 
opinion throughout Greece gave emphatically 
the honor to the right man, Themistocles (124). 



BOOK EIGHTH. 433 

3. For the third time the historian introduces 
the two armaments in a short section (126-32), 
which shows some of the side issues of the great 
contest, while the main forces of the two antag- 
onists are quiet and wholly separated from each 
other. 

1. The Persian contingent under Artabazus 
(126), having escorted Xerxes to the Hellespont, 
was on its way back to Mardonius, when it 
sought to suppress revolts of Greek cities in the 
North, as Potidaeaand Olynthus. The battle of 
Salamis had stirred evidently the Greek towns 
along the Persian line of march, indeed the 
whole Hellenic world saw a new destiny for them- 
selves through that victory over the Orient; in 
their spirits the Occident had really dawned. 
Artabazus meets with a disaster, and is repelled 
from Potidaea with loss (129) by the allied 
Greeks of that region. Meanwhile the Persian 
fleet kept timidly at Samos, watching over Ionia, 
*'lest it should revolt;" for all the Greek islands 
and the Greek settlements along: the coast of Asia 
Minor had heard of the great victory and were 
fermenting. We read that '* most of the marines 
wereMedes and Persians," a land-people, without 
experience of the sea, and hence " they despaired 
of success" against the Athenians; nor could 
they trust to the Ionic sailors of the Aegaean. 

(2) The Greeks began to assemble their fleet 
in the spring atEgina (131), with a new Lacede- 

28 



434 THE FATHER OF HISTORY. 

monian admiral, Leoty chides; the Athenians also 
have a new commander, Xanthippus, the father 
of Pericles. Themistocles now disappears from 
this history ; it is highly probable that his day 
of reckoning had come, which indeed he was 
always expecting, as we have seen by his dealings 
with the Persians. His successor, Xanthippus, 
is the same who prosecuted Miltiades on a capital 
charge (VI. 136). We have already noted that 
Herodotus had probably access to the Periclean 
circle during his visit to Athens; in that quarter 
he obtained, it may be supposed, his main facts 
about Themistocles. 

The Greek fleet does not show its old nerve and 
asrsressiveness ; on the contrary it seems lethar- 
ofic and even terrified. What is the reason? No 
Themistocles in it now, the one man who is all, 
and without whom all are none. Embassadors 
come from Chios and beseech the Greek com- 
manders '*to liberate Ionia;" in vain. The 
Greeks with diflSculty are prevailed on '' to ad- 
vance as far as Delos;" they are afraid to go 
further (132) ; Samos seems to them '* as far as 
the pillars of Hercules." What ^5 the matter? 
Our answer is, they have no Themistocles, but a 
Xanthippus, who is a good accuser evidently, but 
a poor doer. 

Herodotus, son of Basilides, was one of these 
embassadors from Chios, the only one of them 
mentioned by name here. It has been conject- 



BOOK EIGHTH. 435 

ured that he was in some way connected with our 
historian, bearing the same name, and being so 
specially designated by his kinsman in the present 
passage. 

III. 

We have in the concluding chapters of the 
present Book, the beginning of the rise out of 
this inactive condition, particularly on the part 
of the Persian, who are indeed a great will-people. 
Mardonius from his quarters in Thessaly seeks 
to do two things here recorded, by way of prep- 
aration for his future campaign against Greece 
(133-144). 

1. He sends a man by the name of Mys to con- 
sult the Greek Oracles. Exactly what the motive 
of Mardonius was in this matter, our historian 
does not pretend to say ; but there must have 
been naturally some feeling in the Persian mind 
that the Greek Gods had shown themselves the 
stronger in the present conflict. Could not the 
secret of the future be discovered? Could they 
not somehow be conciliated? We recollect how 
that Croesus (in the First Book) sought to har- 
monize himself with Greek religious conceptions, 
and to win the favor of the God by his rich offer- 
ings at the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. Not 
niuch is told, and the whole winds up in a mira- 
cle, *' an answer given in the Carian tongue " 
by a Greek priestess apparently, whereat the 



436 THE FATHER OF HISTOBY. 

messenger returns to Thessaly with the response 
written down by himself. Very wonderful in- 
deed ; but what of it ? 

2. The other effort of Mardonius here recorded 
is far more noteworthy ; it is his attempt to de- 
tach Athens from the Greek league by means of 
Alexander, a native of Macedon, who was a friend 
and benefactor of the Athenians. Herein the 
Persian commander undoubtedly shows his in- 
sight; he selects the very soul of opposition to 
his sway. The offer is certainly tempting ; the 
Lacedemonian embassadors are present and make 
counter promises. The answer of the Athenians 
to Alexander has in it an energy which thrills 
through all time: " Go tell Mardonius that the 
Athenians say that never, as long as the sun 
continues to shine in the same course as now, 
shall we come to terms with the Persians." 
Then to the Lacedemonian embassadors they 
reiterate the same sentiment with almost equal 
emphasis. They only ask that the Greek army 
be sent to their support with all reasonable ex- 
pedition, in order to attack the enemy in Boeotia, 
" before he has reached Attica," as they expected 
a new invasion of their territory. This moderate 
request, whose fulfillment would be as advanta- 
geous to the rest of the Greeks as to the Athen- 
ians, is not faithfully complied with by the Lace- 
demonians, who delay their armament, till Athens 
is captured a second time (see next Book). 



BOOK NINTH. 

The connection between this and the preced- 
ing Book is direct ; tlie Persians are now to be 
swept out of Europe into Asia, and this process 
is to take place both by land and sea. It is the 
third act of the drama, bes^innino^ with Ther- 
mopylae. Salamis is really the central struggle ; 
if the Persians cannot control the Greek sea, they 
cannot control the Greek people, who are of the 
sea as much as of the land. Especially is this 
the case with the Athenians, who pass from their 
city to their ships with facility. Salamis is the 
test fight, the mediating victory, which is now to 
bring about the final triumph, passing to the 
land with the Athenians, who are also in thefio^ht 
on shore. 

But there is one strange difference between 
the two Books. The hero of the Eio^hth Book — 
Themistocles — has somehow vanished com- 

(437J 



438 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

pleteh^, his name is not mentioned, nor has he 
any command. Aristides is just mentioned as 
the commander of the Athenians at Platea, but 
his personality is not prominent in the battle. 
Indeed, no strong individual now rises out promi- 
nently from the main body of Athenians. The 
Spartan Pausanias is the most conspicuous indi- 
vidual at Platea, and his greatest trait is that he 
is free of the ordinary hide-hound Spartan stub- 
bornness and egoism, and calls for the Athenians 
in critical cases, whom he certainly appreciates. 
Such is his chief merit which makes a great im- 
provement upon Leonidas ; he supplements Spar- 
tan defects with Athenian excellences, and renders 
victory inevitable. 

The Book has three portions : 1st. Platea; de- 
feat by land of Persians and Asiatics, who are 
mostly destroyed, except a body which hurries out 
of Europe (1-89); 2d. Mycale; the Persian 
fleet is driven off the sea and burnt ; end of the 
Persian navy and the sequel to Salamis (90- 
113 ) ; 3d. Sestos is taken in the North, the cables 
of the great bridge which connected Europe and 
Asia f orthe barbarian are captured and dedicated ; 
the Homeric hero Protesilaus is avenged (114- 
123). 

I. 

The first portion deals with the land battle 
at Platea (1-89). A very full account on the 



BOOK NINTH. 439 

whole; our historian had made extensive inquir- 
ies among all parties engaged, specially at Platea, 
where he inspected the monuments of the con- 
flict. The central thing for comprehending the 
battle is to grasp and follow the different pos- 
itions of the Greeks. 

1 . Preliminary ( 1— 18 ) . Mardonius seeks again 
to detach Athens, which refuses with even 
greater emphasis than before. Yet the Greek 
allies delay, so that the Athenians have to desert 
a second time their city, which is again taken and 
laid waste. Athenian embassadors at Sparta 
protest, but there is still delay; a festival, the 
Hyacinthia, is the pretext. The speech of the 
Athenia.n is very keen and even threatening, and 
at last the Lacedemonians start. 

Unquestionably the charge of delay holds 
against the Lacedemonians, yet not to the extent 
here indicated. There is hardly a doubt but 
that they intended to help Athens at last. The 
ten days' delay and the silence of the Ephors can 
be accounted for by what we find in the text of 
Herodotus. It takes time to mobilize such a 
large force — the largest Sparta ever sent out. 
It was indeed for her a tremendous effort. It was 
hardly Chileus, the Tegean, who roused them by 
his warning words, for they could by no means 
have done all this work in a night. Reasons for 
such secrecy can be given : the Spartan character 
and policy, which sought to keep their army's 



440 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

** numbers hid from strangers (Thuc. V. 68)." 
It was also an object to pass by Argos without 
trouble or delay (see later). It is plain, there- 
fore, that while the Ephors were putting off the 
Athenian embassy, they were making all prepa- 
rations. So far we may correct Herodotus by his 
own text. 

Still the charge of undue delay holds. Every 
feeling of honor and the faith of promises ought 
to have bound the Lacedemonians not to permit 
Athens to be deserted a second time, but to fio:ht 
the enemy in Boeotia where at last the battle did 
take place. In a sense, however, all these events 
showed the Athenians absolutely independent of 
the Peloponnesians, for Salamis could be held 
easily against the Persian. Just that island and 
its narrow strait rendered Greek history possible 
by saving Athens, which now really rules the 
sea, and with it holds in her hand Greek destiny. 

On the Persian side Mardonius retires to 
Boeotia. Observe two typical events : the enter- 
tainment at Thebes and the presentiment of 
defeat among the Persians, there being good 
grounds for it ; also the affair with the Phocians 
and the working of the Pheme (the premonitory 
voice). 

2. March of the Greeks to the first position (19- 
24). The Peloponnesians gather at the Isthmus, 
but no Athenians ; so the allies have to do as the 
Athenians said; the latter join the army at 



BOOK NINTH. 441 

Eleasis in Attica, crossing over from Salamis, 
where they were out of danger, while the Pelop- 
onnesians were certainly not. Those Athenians 
most nobly were again giving themselves to the 
cause, after bad treatment. Perhaps a little 
sulky at first, but they bring the spirit of victory 
with them. So they reach the first position at 
Erythrae in Boeotia while the enemy lies along 
the river Asopus. 

The Greeks keep the high ground, shun the 
plain on account of Persian cavalry, which as- 
sails them notwithstandino^ ; the Mesfarians call 
for help, none offer to go but Olympiodorus and 
a band of Athenians with the bowmen. Here 
occurs the death of Masistius, followed by the 
capture of his body. He was the Persian cavalry 
leader. First blow, and the Athenian in the 
front. 

Great encouragement results ; the Greeks find 
they can fight cavalry with success, something 
not yet done even by the Athenians at Marathon. 
Now the fact is proved by them; in exalted 
hope, the whole army makes a new move. 

3. The second 'position of the Greeks (^25-50). 
This lies further down the mountain, more in the 
plain, with a better supply of water from the 
fount Gargaphia. More audacious, perhaps a 
little too much so, the Greeks become. The dis- 
pute as to the place on the left wing between 
Tegeans and Athenians is significant. Mythical 



442 THE FA THEE OF HIS TOBY. 

claims both sides make, but Athens has the his- 
torical fact, Marathon. Still she will not quarrel 
at such a time, she is willing to fight anywhere, 
let the Lacedemonians decide. And they all 
shouted : the Athenians are the worthier. Such 
is the most heart-stirring incident in this whole 
history; such self-suppression in view of the 
cause is the Athenian glory. The Athenian spirit 
is again strongly applauded by the Lacedemo- 
nians, it will be a powerful influence in the future 
battle, and it now overwhelms the Tegeans, for 
the Lacedemonians would not decide till this man- 
ifestation. The Tegeans get a good place next 
to the Lacedemonians ; they did not sulk, but 
won great honor in the fight. 

The roll is now called by the historian on each 
side. Among; the Greeks foro^et not the 40,000 
Helots fighting for Greek liberty, four times 
more than all the Lacedemonians, and over one- 
third of the whole army. 

The diviner has very important part in this 
battle; note Tisamenus and his story (33). Mar- 
donius has likewise his Greek soothsayer at first, 
Hegesistratus, who also has a history. The sac- 
rifices on both sides are not favorable for battle. 
The stopping of Greek supplies (38) is a serious 
but not a fatal mishap. Victims do not permit 
the fight ; perchance neither side wishes to start 
the attack. Other incidents of note : the refusal 
of Mardonius to employ bribery ; his respect 



BOOK NINTH. 443 

for the Delphic Oracle ; Alexander comes to the 
Greek camp with a secret message (45). 

This message frightens Pausanias, who per- 
haps now overestimates the Athenians, offering 
to change wings with them. It is indeed a most 
surprising incident. Never could there have been 
so complete an acknowledgment of the Athenians' 
place in the conflict. But the wings change back 
again when the move does no good; it encour- 
ages, however, the Persians, who make a fresh 
attack and choke up the fountain Gargaphia, 
which compels the Greeks to take a new posi- 
tion. 

4. Third position of the Greeks (51-69). 
They now shift to the Island, ten stades distant, 
near Platea, where they have water and a higher 
ground, more out of the way of the cavalry. 
The center retreats in bad order, and does not 
take the position assigned; the Lacedemonians 
are stopped by one of their captains refusing to 
stir — an unexpected obstacle. The Athenians 
stay and keep a sharp outlook over the Lace- 
demonians, evidently distrusting them some- 
what, for the gap in the middle seems suspicious 
to the Athenians. So they send and get answer 
that they should adjust themselves to the Lace- 
demonians, and come to them (fill the gap forthe 
present). Very significant again is the place of 
the Athenians in this affair. They are really the 
people relied on by Pausanias to help out, and 



444 THE FATHEB OF HISTORY. 

they do so always. Finally the Lacedemonians 
start and keep close to the hills, fearing the cav- 
alry. The Athenians move down into the plain, 
to attract the cavalry probably from the dis- 
united Greeks. What a contrast in the inner 
discipline between Athenians and Spartans ! 
Still the Spartans remained visible to the enemy, 
and were pursued by the Persians, while the 
Athenians were not seen, as they passed through 
the plain. Again an urgent request comes to the 
Athenians from Pausanias, when he is attacked 
by the cavalry ; almost terror-stricken does he 
seem in this appeal. 

The battle is brought on by the retrograde 
movement, the Persians advancing in a disorderly 
way. Victims are still not favorable, but the 
Tegeans start anj^how. Some time after them 
the Spartans follow. The Persians show them- 
selves not trained, though brave; Artabazus, 
however, runs off with a large detachment of the 
Persian army. 

So the battle is fought chiefly by the Lace- 
demonians and the Athenians — the former 
overthrowing the Persians, the latter the The- 
bans, who flee to this city; the Athenians then 
turn aside to the Persian camp or wall. 

5. Events at the Persian wall ( 70-85). Again 
the Athenians have to do the new work; they 
surmount the wall, make the breach when the 
Tegeans and Lacedemonians pour in. This is 



BOOK NINTH. 445 

like the wall at Troj^ which no personal bravery 
can take, no Achilles, but Ulysses (intelligence). 
It is affectinoj to see how the historian rescues the 
bravest Spartan, Aristodemus, from the injustice 
of his countrymen, the one survivor of Ther- 
mopylae. Pausanias is heroized in several anec- 
dotes : he protects a fleeing concubine ; he spurns 
an inhuman proposal of an Eginetan ; he refuses 
to slay the innocent sons of the Theban leader 
who has escaped. 

6. Siege of Thebes and the flight of the Per- 
sians (86-89). As in legend, so now in history. 
There is something un-Greek in Thebes, some- 
thing Asiatic, which Greece has to put down. 
Thebes falls, offering to surrender its medizing 
leaders. So we have the historical sieo:e of 
Thebes, which has its mythical counterpart in 
the heroic age of Greece. 

The Persians under Artabazus continue their 
flight and reach Byzantium, where they cross 
over by boats into Asia. Pausanias would allow 
no pursuit, but he let them flee, which was the 
best policy under the circumstances. 

Note the place which the Athenians hold in 
this battle, being the very soul of the army and 
its intelligence; they, though without supreme 
authority, still control mainly, as Themistocles 
did at the battle of Salamis. They give the first 
encouragement by slaying Masistius, and they 
first meet the Persian cavalry so terrible to the 



446 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

Lacedemonians. The latter could not keep them 
down in a subordinate rank. 

Very interesting must have been the visit of 
Herodotus to Platea, which took place probably 
while he was staying at Athens, with possible 
letters of introduction from Pericles. These 
would give him many friends from the start; 
forth we see him going, from the Plateau walls 
to view the monuments with distinguished 
Plateaus as guides. 

II. 

We now pass to the fleet and to the battle of 
Mycale in Asia Minor (90-113), which occurred 
on the same day on which the battle of Platea 
took place. The Samians go to the Greek fleet 
for help against the Persian, and the Lacede- 
monian admiral starts from Delos, Deiphonus 
(God's voice) acting as diviner. 

This Deiphonus receives special attention here 
in a story. It is noticeable that in these later 
Books the historian gives greater prominence to 
the diviners (or augurs) than in the other por- 
tions of his History. They are mentioned by 
name along with the generals, and the battle can- 
not proceed without them, though it would seem 
that the Tegeans "defied augury" and began 
the battle at Platea. Moreover these diviners 
are deemed worthy of a biographic account ( see 
the narrative about Tisamenus, the diviner for 



BOOK NINTH. 447 

the Spartans IX. 33, and of Hegesistratus, the 
diviner for Mardonius, IX. 37; especially is 
Megistias honored with an epigram by Simonides, 
being the diviner at Thermopylae and perishing 
there with the Spartans, though he foreknew his 
fate, VII. 228). 

The Persians send home the Phoenician ships, 
completely giving up the control of the sea, and 
they hasten with their other ships to the land at 
Mycale. They make a kind of w^all and prepare 
to defend themselves. Pheme, Kumor, that 
divine voice, is also heard here, and passing 
through the camp of the Greeks, announces the 
victory at Platea (an anticipation of the modern 
telegraph). 

The enemy were commanded by Tigranes, 
*'wdio excelled the Persians in beauty and in 
stature." It is characteristic of Greek artistic 
spirit that the most beautiful men are specially 
designated in the text of the historian. Calli- 
crates, a Spartan, " came to the army the hand- 
somest man of the Greeks of that time," hence 
he is to receive particular mention. In like man- 
ner the beauty of three Persian leaders is duly 
celebrated — Masistius, Mardonius, and Tigranes. 
Thus the beautiful, as manifesting: itself in the 
human form, gets its due in this history of the 
great conflict, soon after which plastic Art is to 
reach its highest terrestrial bloom at Athens in 
the workshop of Phidias. 



448 THE FATHEB OF HIS TOBY. 

In the battle at Mycale the Athenians are easily 
the first; they outstrip the Lacedemonians and 
defeat the enemy in advance. What shall we say 
about Athens and her people throughout this 
war? The greatest marvel of all is just their 
spirit ; they appear to have a demonic impulse to 
the great action ; wherever they go, victory is in 
the air. They do not seem to have had a diviner, 
and it was probably they who did not like 
Deiphonus (the diviner 'who had been brought by 
the Corinthians), saying that he served for hire 
( 95 ) . The era of intelligence has clearly dawned 
at Athens, as has been already indicated more 
than once. 

In the concluding part of this section (107- 
113), the historian gives us some peeps into the 
internal quarrels among the Persians. It is plain 
that the grand failure of the expedition has 
caused many reproaches and recriminations. The 
story of Xenagoras, a Halicarnassian (and hence 
the fellow-countryman of our historian), who 
saved the life of the brother of Xerxes, was 
probably heard by Herodotus in his native town. 

A deeper cast has the love-affair of Xerxes 
with the wife of his brother Masistes (108). It 
shows the intrigues of the absolute monarch for 
the gratification of his passion ; he does not spare 
his nearest kin ; Persian degeneracy has evidently 
set in, the manly virtues of Cyrus and of Darius 
are overshadowed by luxury. The end is a 



BOOK NINTH. 440 

tragedy of the darkest hue ; the honorable man 
and woman at the Persian court are first undone 
and then destroyed. This is our last glimpse of 
Xerxes, hinting the miserable outcome of his 
mighty expedition against Greece; the tale in- 
serted just here has its strong suggestion, which 
the historian with his artistic instinct must have 
felt at the present conjuncture. 

III. 

The third portion of the present Book (114- 
122) is brief and is the conclusion of the whole 
History. The author has brought to an end the 
theme with which he began ; beyond the Persian 
War of Xerxes he does not intend to carry us, 
though at the end he casts a significant glance 
into the epoch that is coming. 

After the battle of Mycale, the combined fleet 
of the Greeks set out for the Hellespont to de- 
stroy the bridge between Asia and Europe, which 
they find broken asunder already. At this point 
occurs the grand separation between Athenians 
and Lacedemonians, never again to be entirely 
healed, and the starting-point of a new stage of 
Greek history. **Leotychides with the Pelopon- 
nesians concluded to sail home, while Xanthippus 
with the Athenians resolved to stay and to 
try to subdue the Chersonesus." Such is the 
difference which will continue to widen till it 
becomes the Peloponnesian War between Athens 

29 



450 THE FATHER OF HIS TOBY. 

and Sparta. The Athenians bfesiege and take 
Sestos which may be deemed the beginning of 
the Athenian Empire ; they now act for them- 
selves, and the leaders seem to have a presenti- 
ment of the new order (117). 

Here we have the mythical element of the past 
connected with the historical element of the pres- 
ent in a storv which tells of the Persian wrono^ 
done to the hero Protesilaus, who was the first 
Greek to land and to fall at Troy, and of the 
ample revenge of his wrong by the Greeks. The 
Persian commander of the district had robbed and 
desecrated the sanctuary of the Greek hero, 
alleging to Xerxes that this Greek *' had carried 
arms into your territories." By this allusion we 
see that both Persian and Greek regarded the 
Trojan War as a conflict between Asia and Hellas, 
and in a line of connection with the present war. 
The duty of the Greeks to avenge the insult is 
held to be greater than any sum of money, since 
they will not accept the Persian commander's 
tempting offer of two hundred talents for him- 
self and his children. 

Thus the history of Herodotus returns to its 
starting-point, which is the Mythus, and specially 
the My thus of Troy. (Seel. 3, 4.) Protesilaus 
was the first man to leap on the Asiatic shore 
in the attack upon Troy ; thus we have verily 
remounted to the beginning. 

Typical is the fact that the cables and other 



BOOK NINTH. 451 

materials of the bridge were captured and taken 
to Athens, where they were dedicated in the 
temples to the Greek Gods. Such is the end of 
that which was to be the passage of Asia into 
Europe ; Athens has it and will keep it, for a 
time at least. 

The last chapter of the History is an anecdote, 
of the ** That reminds me" style, hinting the 
two classes of Oriental peoples, the hardy stock 
of the mountains, who are the conquerors, and 
the effeminate inhabitants of the fertile plains, 
who are the conquered. It suggests also the 
difference between the Greek and Oriental to a 
certain degree. But the anecdote has been sus- 
pected to be a later addition, and it can be left 
away without much detriment. The History is 
finished when the Athenians sail home with the 
materials of the bridge, having captured Sestos 
and avenged the hero Protesilaus. 



ilililtlillii 



018 487 705 3 



